Free Republic

Logic dictates Trump may have a point about the Fed making decisions based on political imperatives The current stock market downturn appears timed to help the Democrat Party by scaring investors into rejecting Donald Trump on the grounds he’d trigger a crash if the Republicans win the White House in November. The Dow Jones fell again Tuesday this time over 250 points due in part, to fears of a rate hike at the Fed policy meeting next week. These market jitters may well have been calculated for effect, and engineered by Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen in a bid to...

"...Donald Trump told reporters Monday that the Federal Reserve is keeping interests rates at record lows to help President Obama and to keep the economy from going down. "They’re keeping the rates artificially low so the economy doesn’t go down," Trump said in response to a question about a potential rate hike by the Federal Reserve this month. "So that Obama can say he did a good job. That's the only reason that the rates are so low. They're keeping the rates artificially low so that Obama can go out and play golf after January and say that he did...

Taking aim at the Federal Reserve's politically motivated manipulation of the U.S. economy, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump blasted the controversial central bank's artificially low interest rates. He also denounced the “very false economy” propped up by Fed monetary gimmicks. Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, though, hit back immediately, saying Trump should not malign or even comment on the increasingly unpopular institution that controls America's monetary system.Trump's comments, which sparked national headlines, came earlier this week at an Ohio campaign stop in response to a question from a reporter about possible interest rate hikes by the Fed later this month. “They're...

While it is not exactly clear what public relations goals the privately-owned Fed (recall Bernanke's Former Advisor: "People Would Be Stunned To Know The Extent To Which The Fed Is Privately Owned") hoped to achieve by launching its first Facebook page last Thursday, the resultant outpouring of less than euphoric public reactions suggest this latest PR effort may have been waster at best, and at worst backfired at a magnitude that matches JPM's infamous #AskJPM twitter gaffe. Here are some examples of the public responses to the Fed's original posting: they all share a certain uniformity... [Screen captures] [More by...

Donald Trump told CNBC on Thursday he's for low interest rates unless inflation perks up, and he would probably replace Janet Yellen when her term is up as Federal Reserve chair. "I have nothing against Janet Yellen whatsoever. I think she's been doing her job," the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said in a wide-ranging phone interview with "Squawk Box."

The unexpected U.K. vote to leave the European Union has predictably set off a flight to safety, sinking global equity markets and Treasury yields, while boosting the value of the dollar. The immediate consequences are the opposite of what the weak global economy... ...the U.K. only accounts for about 2.4% of global GDP... ...Brexit vote will provoke "a crisis of confidence... ...For now, though, uncertainty about the future of Europe and concern about the disruption of trade are likely to weigh on investment and growth. IHS Global Insight, which had been forecasting 1.5% GDP growth in Germany in 2017, now...

The largest U.S. financial institutions have enough armor to withstand the turmoil of a major and prolonged national and global recession, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. The central bank’s annual “stress tests” show that the 33 largest financial institutions — including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — all hold more capital than at any time since the 2008 financial crisis. They also hold enough capital that, even if faced with billions of dollars in losses from loans as a result of an economic crisis, they would continue to function. The stress tests were created in the...

Prior to the election of AmericaÂ’s longest serving socialist president, our money was backed by gold. Anyone holding our paper currency could demand to exchange it for gold at a set price. In 1913, the gold standard was officially made part of the Federal Reserve and the price of gold was fixed at $20.67 per ounce. The same law mandated that the Federal Reserve kept enough gold on hand to equal 40% of the currency issued at the time.On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn into office for the first time. The day after his inauguration, Roosevelt closed...

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Friday that an interest rate hike would be appropriate in the coming months if the economy keeps improving. While economic growth was relatively weak at the end of last year and beginning of this year, it appears to be picking up now based on recent data, Yellen said during a discussion at Harvard University. She said she expects the Fed to “gradually and cautiously increase” its key interest rate “and probably in the coming months, such a move would be appropriate.” …

Last week, President Obama and Vice President Biden held a hastily arranged secret meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen. According to the one paragraph statement released by the White House following the meeting, Yellen, Obama, and Biden simply "exchanged notes" about the economy and the progress of financial reform. Because the meeting was held behind closed doors, the American people have no way of knowing what else the three might have discussed. Yellen's secret meeting at the White House followed an emergency secret Federal Reserve Board meeting. The Fed then held another secret meeting to discuss bank reform. These...

Remove the burden of government • Restore the Constitution, rule of law • Limit the power of the Federal Reserve, regulatory agencies • Stop redistributing wealth It was my great good fortune to be a son of depression parents. My mother and father were born in the early 1920s. They were observant, sensitive, thoughtful parents who took the time to tell stories. They reflected on and spoke of their early years often to their sons, sharing the hopes and fears of their upbringing as we grew up ourselves. They showed us how to observe the world around us. One set...

Ten U.S. states still have not regained all the jobs they lost in the Great Recession, even after six and a half years of recovery, while many more have seen only modest gains. […] Wyoming had 3 percent fewer jobs last month than it did in December 2007, when the recession began, the Labor Department said Friday. That is the biggest percentage decline among the states. Alabama's job total trails its pre-recession level by 2.7 percent, followed by New Mexico, where job totals are 2.6 percent lower. Some larger states are also still behind. New Jersey has nearly 1 percent...

The lords of finance are losing their touch. Institutions which dragged the world from its worst depression since the early 20th century are finally seeing their magic desert them, if conventional wisdom is to be believed. Eight years on the from the Great Recession, voices as authoritative as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of International Settlements - dubbed the 'central bank of central banks' - have called time on the era of extraordinary monetary policy. Having hoovered up $12.3 trillion (£8.5 trillion) in financial assets and carried out 637 interest rate cuts since 2008, central banks have been stunned...

Bangladesh’s central bank said on Monday its account with the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York had been hacked and money had been stolen from it, but that it had recovered some of the funds. The theft occurred February 5th, but officials are just now making public the size of the theft.Bangladesh Bank said it had traced some of the money to the Philippines and was working with anti-money laundering authorities there.However, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York denied that its payments systems were breached: “To date, there is no evidence of any attempt to penetrate Federal Reserve...

South Korean Economy Boosted As Won Jumps To New High Hackers helped themselves to $81 million after breaching Bangladesh Bank’s systems between Feb. 4 and Feb. 5—but the massive theft could have been far worse if not for a typo. After successfully transferring $81 million from the bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to entities in the Philippines, the hackers tried to transfer another $20 million to a Sri Lankan nonprofit, only they wrote “fandation” rather than “foundation” as part of its name, an official tells Reuters. While the Fed grew suspicious, routing bank Deutsche Bank...

The Federal Reserve has put forward new rules aimed at addressing one of the primary causes of the 2008 financial crisis -- the financial exposures that the biggest banks had with each other. The Fed is proposing new limits on that exposure. It hopes the new rules will prevent the type of crisis that engulfed the U.S. financial system in September 2008 when the collapse of Lehman Brothers raised fears about the stability of other banks that had made loans to Lehman. [...] The rules would implement a portion of the Dodd-Frank Act passed by Congress in 2010 in response...

Ever since the financial crisis, many outside the wealthy elite (sometimes referred to as populists) have argued that the largest banks are too big and too risky. Minneapolis Federal Reserve president Neel Kashkari recently echoed those beliefs.Yet if a new Federal Reserve proposal goes through, Wells Fargo and other large banks might get even bigger and riskier, adding billions to their balance sheets that could increase the banks’ risk profiles.The Federal Reserve says the proposal, which specifies the amount and kind of debt that systemically important large banks must hold, could help make sure that those banks can be wound...

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump went after GOP rival Sen. Ted Cruz for missing a Senate vote on a bill that would have audited the Federal Reserve. "It is so important to audit The Federal Reserve, and yet Ted Cruz missed the vote on the bill that would allow this to be done," Trump posted on Twitter on Monday afternoon. Cruz missed a vote on legislation in the Senate that reportedly would have audited the Federal Reserve, as the Guardian noted, as did former Rep. Ron Paul to campaign for his son Sen. Rand Paul. Paul referenced Cruz's missed vote, previously...

Hold tight, wait 'til the party's over. Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather. There has got to be a way Burning down the house. By now, it should be obvious to the observant that the 'scoundrels-looting-the-treasury' phase of our economic arc is about played out, and before the entire rotten financial edifice collapses, there will be a war ignited across Europe and the Middle East which will serve as a distraction for the masses, while the very worst of the scoundrels take to ground to wait for the smoke to clear before they emerge. The gangsters actually directing the...

A coming change in accounting standards could do irreversible damage to community banks, U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., said in a letter to the Financial Accounting Standards Board. An accounting-standards update due to be issued by the board would change the way all lenders set aside reserve funds in anticipation of possible losses. The board, wrote Tipton and Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., should take "utmost caution" in proceeding because it has the potential to "irreversibly damage community banks' and credit unions' ability to continue to adequately serve their customers/members and communities and sustain the economic recovery." ... Tipton, a member...