Posted on 02/15/2025 2:28:37 PM PST by HannagansBride
https://www.hustleescape.com/book-summary-creature-from-jekyll-island-by-edward-griffin/
No one would care about abolishing the FED if it simply shut up and only announced changes as they happened.
The real problem is untethering the currency from gold. If the Federal Reserve did only what it was supposed to do, which is have a supply of reserves supplied by private banks to supply liquidity in cases of a bank panic, then that would be that.
But when Nixon dropped the Bretton Woods gold exchange mechanism in 1971, it effectively transferred control of the currency to the Federal Reserve because now the value of the currency was determined by interest rates and the money supply, both of which the Fed controlled.
Without a gold limit, the Fed could now hold T-Bills as "assets" and provide all the liquidity necessary to fund endless fiscal and trade deficits, inflating the currency.
This is why politicians love the current system: they can run massive deficits, and if the demand for T-Bills falls and prices fall (interest rates rise) and the gov cannot raise money, the Fed steps in and "buys" the T-Bills, providing cash to enable the gov to borrow endless amounts of money without raising taxes. The extra liquidity also funds endless imports.
Under the gold system, the gov must raise taxes or explicitly devalue the currency if it borrows too much. Similarly, trade deficits must cause the importing currency to fall and the exporting to rise until the trade deficit is rectified.
Both the political and the economic elites prefer the fiat system so they can rob us blind.
Three years after signing the Federal Reserve Act into law, President Woodrow Wilson observes:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
Dr. Murray Rothbard wrote a book on this years ago, which I read called “The Case Against the Fed”, highly recommend it.
Th fiat system quite literally prints worthless money that banks make a killing on via fractional banking while imposing a horrible tax in the form of inflation. Th founders hated the national bank or the kings bank but Hammer Lyon pushed it taking a vantage of Washington’s angst about our debt.
“Largely nonsense. The fractional reserve system of banking goes back to the Italian city-state banks of the 14th century.”
He did not say that the Fed created fractional reserve system of banking. He merely said that it uses it.
The way the Fed abuses fractional reserve banking is by buying T-Bills and counting those as "assets" which allow it to purchase yet more T-Bills.
This keeps interest rates lower than they should be and enables out of control deficit spending, both of which cause inflation.
I agree in the sense that the fiat system (no gold exchange mechanism) enables the whole scam, including the Fed’s abuse of fractional reserve.
I should catalog all the “favors” Nixon did for us. It is not a nice list and includes such doozies as removal from the gold standard, devalued currency to control inflation, suggested a surtax to discourage spending and control inflation [caused by him?], OSHA, EPA, For profit hospitals, lowered voting age, Signed the CBA of 1974 etc.
Great guy. Probably smarter than he acted.
The "worst" thing they can think of is Watergate, which looks more and more like a Dem/media conspiracy to force Nixon out of office.
Yes, strange that to me as well. Just about remembered for nothing else.
There is a series of interviews with him of course available through the Nixon Library. I have not watched all of them but in those I have watched he comes across both very smart but also strange. I bet a shrink would not be kind to him.
“But he talks about fractional reserve banking as though it’s a recent innovation associated with the Federal Reserve.”
But he is talking about the Fed, which is a recent innovation. He mentions the Bank of England as a precedessor.
That fake quote is almost as good as the fake quote by Jefferson about inflation and deflation.
The passage you’ve provided is often attributed to President Woodrow Wilson, suggesting his regret over establishing the Federal Reserve System. However, this specific combination of sentences does not appear in Wilson’s writings or speeches. Instead, it seems to be a conflation of excerpts from his 1913 book, The New Freedom, with additional unsourced statements.
In The New Freedom, Wilson discusses the concentration of economic power:
“A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men...”
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
He also critiques the control exerted by small groups over the government:
“We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.”
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
The opening lines, “I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country,” lack credible sourcing and are not found in Wilson’s known works. This misattribution has been propagated over time, leading to misconceptions about Wilson’s views. For a detailed examination of this misquotation, you can refer to the discussion on the Wikipedia Talk page for the Federal Reserve Act.
EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG
It’s essential to approach such quotes with caution and verify them against original sources to ensure their authenticity.
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