Posted on 08/03/2011 1:18:07 PM PDT by ex-Texan
Rep. Ron Paul on Monday introduced legislation that would lower the federal government's debt by canceling the roughly $1.6 trillion in debt held by the Federal Reserve.
Paul has argued for the last few weeks that the idea represents a quick way to make the growing fiscal crisis more manageable. Under his bill, H.R. 2768, the $1.6 trillion that the Treasury owes to the Federal Reserve would disappear.
The Federal Reserve began buying Treasury bonds in earnest late last year as part of its effort to keep long-term interest rates down. But Paul has argued that Fed purchases of Treasury debt represent a debt that the government owes to itself, and one that also leads to an unwanted and inflationary increase in the money supply.
Paul has also said the Fed is allowing the federal government to continue a spending binge it otherwise would not be able to afford, and is forcing the Fed to print money to keep up.
"If the federal government cannot cut spending and bring the budget back into balance, the Fed undoubtedly will be forced to simply monetize trillions of dollars in Treasury debt, which is nothing more than a stealth form of default," Paul said back in May.
Paul is highly critical of the debt-ceiling agreement that the House approved Monday, and said that rather than require real cuts in spending, the bill mostly cuts planned spending levels in the future. According to the legislation, discretionary spending in 2012 would be just $7 billion less than in 2011, and in 2013 it would be just $3 billion less than 2011 before allowing increases above 2011 levels.
"No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it," Paul wrote in a piece that appeared on The Hill's Congress Blog. "Instead, the 'cuts' being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases."
"But with respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age, or within the term of 19 years."--Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1789
How about the $9 Trillion that the Fed can’t account for?-—
do tell...
what’s the frequency kenneth? where can i find moron this...
teeman
The man makes way too much sense to be listened to by his establishment numbskull colleagues…BY TPA on 08/02/2011 at 11:26M
A couple of POTUSs supposedly wanted to start printing USA currency instead of Federal Reserve and they ended up assassinated. Kennedy was one.
I see the enormous abuse of the taxpayer and our dollar by the Fed to the benefit of a few on Wall Street and I strongly oppose it.
Here is a good example: http://prudentinvestornewsletters.blogspot.com/2011/04/federal-reserves-pandoras-box-some.html
They run their organization like the ATF against public interest passing out our money to dictators and thieves.
One of the most ineffectual congress critters ever... all hat and no cattle. Same old, same old bla bla blah.
Noise, laudable but noise. A waste of time and energy. It will go nowhere.
What consequences would arise from doing this?
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The people who own the Fed would have Dr. Paul killed if this bill starts getting support.
My exact thought and I'm sure somebody is getting a "modest" handling fee to process these transactions
Stick a hose in your butt and live by breathing your own farts. That is what the US government is doing.
Wouldn't we be better off cancelling the Federal Reserve?
Don’t the Fed’s profits go into the US Treasury each year?
Not even. I think the best way to think of it is that the Fed created the $1.6 trillion to buy the bonds (out of thin air) and now expects to be paid interest on them. That's how the Fed makes money. Sweet, huh?
The Fed is a private for-profit corporation. Strangely enough!
Seems to me that it would have been cheaper to “invest” with Madoff.
Some "private for profit corporation" it is if its profits go into the US Treasury.
Now Alexander Hamilton's bank (1791-1811) was a true private bank.
As an accountant I did the T-accounts on this. When the fed buys the bonds it creates new money, which becomes a liability, but there is no identifiable asset in that T-account. Maybe we could offset that with hubris? The Treasury has bonds as a liability and receives the new money as an asset. In turn the Congress converts the new money into “walking around money” to fund projects to keep this ruling elite in power. (I think I am sounding a bit cynical.) If we eliminate bonds as an asset on the Fed books and bonds as a liability on the Treasury books, then the new money created is purely inflationary for all time.
On the other side of Fed Open Market transactions, it sells bonds and receives back money which contracts the money supply. Since the Fed has no bonds after the bill passes that option disappears.
The statement that this is debt we just owe to ourselves does have a problem. If we have to keep passing the bonds, and the new ones issued as the old ones mature to others of us, then subsequent generations of ”we” have to be willing to buy into the scheme and in ever greater amounts. If “we” ever decide to hold gold or land, or decide we have to buy consumables instead, then inflation goes through the roof because there are no bond buyers. Prices for all goods and services skyrocket as bond yields increase exponentially.
The most likely motivator for making decisions not to hold bonds comes from those foreign countries that currently hold $100 billions of our bonds. Prices are made at the margin by those 5% or so who actively trade the bonds. If that minority decides they just don’t want to hold U.S. Treasury bonds at any price (interest yield), then that raises the anxiety of the other 95%, including “we”, who were willing to hold the bonds.
Precisely. That’s why they call it Government Motors.
“So this is how our Repubilc ends — “Not with a bang, but a whimper.”
Ah, contraire, my friend.
The fascists and commies must still account for and render a defense against the 1st and 2nd Marine divisions. They have not. Big, big mistake on their part.
Thieves and dictators bleed and die like anyone else.
So, the Fed buys Treasury debt in order to fund the government deficit.
In order to buy that debt, the Fed prints the money.
Then the Treasury disburses that money to the federal agencies.
And if this legislation is passed, the Treasury no longer has to pay the Fed.
Without those payments, the Fed has less money to spread out among the banks.
So the Fed prints more money. And we are back where we started.
Except that, now we have all that extra money in circulation, inflation is magnified, and our money is even more worthless.
Can you explain that to me like I’m an 8 year old?
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