Posted on 08/31/2009 12:53:14 AM PDT by CutePuppy
The Federal Reserve has made $14 billion in profits on loans made in the last two years, the Financial Times reported on Monday, citing officials close to the matter.
The U.S. central bank also earned about $19 billion from interest and fees charged to institutions that tapped liquidity facilities during the global financial crisis, the report said.
If the Fed had invested the same amounted loaned out in three-month Treasury bills since August 2007, it would have earned $5 billion in interest, the FT said.
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(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Prove it with an audit.
Seriously, how in the hell did the citizenry in 1913 allow Rockefeller’s son-in-law to legislate away their monetary policy? Granted, this was the era of Hearst journalism but you’d think there’d have been some outrage that the private banking cartels were taking over.
Rep. Frank eyes Fed audit, emergency lending curbs Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, said he plans legislation to restrict the Federal Reserve's emergency lending powers and subject the central bank to a "complete audit." At a recent town hall meeting, Frank said the House would pass a bill to use an audit to crack open the central bank's books more widely, but in a way that will not encroach on the central bank's monetary policy independence. In addition, he said the House would move to rein in the authority that allows the Fed to lend to a wide range of non-bank firms in "unusual and exigent circumstances." A bill sponsored by Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul that would allow the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, to audit Fed interest-rate decisions has won the co-sponsorship of more than half of the House. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that the bill would compromise the U.S. central bank's policy-making independence and could undermine financial markets and the economy. Frank said he has been working with Paul on compromise language. "He agrees that we don't want to have the audit appear as if it is influencing monetary policy because that would be inflationary," Frank told constituents. A video of his remarks was posted on the popular video file-sharing website YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2DX9Iu4wNo . Steven Adamske, a spokesman for Frank, told Reuters compromise language had not yet been written. He provided no further details. A spokesman for Paul could not be reached. .... WASHINGTON - By Tim Ahmann
Who owns other countries’ Central Banks? Which countries do not have Central Banks (or whatever equivalent names they are called)? Who “prints” the money everywhere else? If dollar is [still] a reserve currency would not more of it be printed to accommodate the demand outside of the USA?
IS [Fed’s] monetary policy more important to economy than [President’s and Congress’] fiscal policy?
Which countries are still, if ever were, on the “gold standard”? Do we want to be on the “gold standard” in addition to already being on the “oil standard” and any other “commodity standard”?
Now, why would he think that? Was not it quite frank of him to say it?
The EU has the European Central Bank of course, which is really a continental central bank that draws off of national central banks. Most other countries have their own central bank that is (unlike the Fed) operated by the government as per their Constitution or other ruling document. More physical dollars does not represent more value, at least as a trade currency. Imagine the entirety of USD in the world as an apple pie. If sliced four ways, each piece would be larger and therefore more valuable. But each time you print more money (and everytime the Fed “injects” cash that’s all it does, including stimulus and bailouts) you slice those pieces even thinner. Eventually you get to a point, such as post-WW1 Germany, where the slices of the pie aren’t worth eating. I hope that makes sense, it’s the best I can come up with at 5 am without getting into the Austrian school economic theories.
“IS [Fed’s] monetary policy more important to economy than [President’s and Congress’] fiscal policy?”
In many ways, they are tied at the hip. Say a President has a bad foreign policy and starts wars all over the world that totally drains financial resources, or a bad domestic policy featuring government programs that do the same. The Fed will continue to print money to pay for these expenditures, and will charge interest to the government which is paid back via Federal income taxes. It’s insane to pay a private banking cartel (tentacles of which are still based in the old European banking elite) to control monetary policy which the Constitution says Congress is responsible for.
“Which countries are still, if ever were, on the “gold standard”? “
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard#Dates_of_adoption_of_a_gold_standard
Most countries were still on the gold standard via the Bretton Woods agreement until Nixon pulled us out (and the dollar has been gradually losing value since, which has happened to every fiat currency in history). He did this because the Vietnam War drained our resources, broached on hyperinflation, and plunged us into a trade deficit. As usual, bad foreign policy lead to bad monetary policy.
Audit the Fed.
Just $1,986B to go and we can call it even.
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