Free Republic

President Trump will have a choice opportunity that few if any presidents have had — the immediate chance to fill two openings on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve. Only five of the board’s seven seats are now filled, a fact that has received scant attention in the press. Yet finding the right nominees will be important in setting the stage for monetary reforms needed to end the age of fiat money and put paid to the “false economy” of which Mr. Trump warned. We are only one stop on the organ known as the “Great Mentioner,” but...

"Forget all that talk about Janet Yellen stepping down if Donald Trump becomes president: The Fed chair told Congress on Thursday she's not leaving."

Donald Trump’s surprise election victory has helped solidify expectations for an interest rate increase next month by the U.S. Federal Reserve — but may have complicated a decision for the European Central Bank, which faces a difficult choice over more stimulus. For the ECB, the issue is what to do about its bond-buying program, which pumps new money into Europe’s struggling economy each month to try to accelerate growth and inflation. The Fed and the ECB — two of the world’s most important central banks — will be making its policy decisions before Trump is inaugurated Jan. 20, while still...

Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari on Wednesday said he sees continued sluggish growth ahead for the U.S. economy, unless lawmakers and the president “get going” on policies to boost productivity and population. Kashkari, who was a senior Treasury official under George W. Bush during the financial crisis, avoided direct comment on the policies or person of newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican who campaigned on the promise of cutting taxes and lifting economic growth, or the Republican-controlled Congress. “The Congress has said to the Fed we are going to leave you alone to set monetary policy...

Video:http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/economics/item/24276-trump-exposing-federal-reserve-huge-favor In this video, The New American magazine's Alex Newman explains what a yuuuge (or huge) service GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump performed by exposing the Federal Reserve and its manipulation of the economy. From touting gold and sound money, to highlighting the damage done by artificially low interest rates and Fed stock-market intervention, Trump has hit on some of the key reasons why this shadowy institution is so dangerous and harmful to America. Trump is also a proponent of "Audit the Fed," legislation backed by a massive movement that seeks to properly audit the central bank. By contrast, Democrat...

My country club locker room is a fascinating 19th hole observatory where human nature and intelligence often come into conflict. Almost all of my golfing buddies are risk takers by nature and many of them are gamblers — not just in the card room but also in the casinos in Las Vegas. Having spent some time in Sin City myself in my early 20s as one of the first blackjack counters, I was, and still am, most familiar with odds and the impossibility of beating the “House” in any game other than blackjack over a long period of time. Still,...

U.S. factory production fell last month amid cutbacks in appliances, home electronics and machinery, threatening hopes for a manufacturing rebound after two previous months of gains. The Federal Reserve said Thursday factory production dropped 0.4 percent in August, after an increase of 0.4 percent in July. A broader measure of industrial output, which includes mines and utilities, also dropped 0.4 percent. Manufacturers have struggled for the past 18 months with sluggish global growth, the strong dollar, and reluctance among U.S. businesses to spend more on large machinery and equipment. That has dragged down factory output 0.4 percent from a year...

On Monday republican presidential candidate Donald Trump fired political shots at the Federal Reserve saying, “she is keeping them artificially low to get Obama retired,” while referring to the interest rate policy the Fed has taken under the leadership of Janet Yellen.

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...