Free Republic

The Federal Reserve is Running on Empty. ‘What passes for central banking today is really a perverse form of Wall Street-pleasing monetary manipulation. It employs the vocabulary of central banking, but in practice it fundamentally undermines main street prosperity, even as it showers the 1% (the top wealthiest people) with unspeakable financial windfalls. Stated differently, virtually everything the Fed does for the alleged benefit of the American economy is both unnecessary and a ruse. The Fed has actually become a captive of the Wall Street traders, gamblers and high rollers, and functions mainly at their behest. The proof of this...

Before we get started this week, I want to show you a chart:Now, if this chart showed the stock price of a company, would you want to invest in it?If it’s the price of a commodity, would you be a buyer?What if you were already heavily invested in this enterprise? Would you hold on and hope for better days ahead? Or would you look at that long downward slide and cut your losses, just walk away?Now, when I say “long downward slide,” I do mean long. Here’s a bit more information…The chart above includes data for over a century –...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-10/citi-economist-says-it-might-be-time-to-abolish-cash

The big story yesterday was supposed to be Ben Bernanke’s signal to the markets about future Fed policy — whether he’ll scale it back, or just go on printing money to keep interest rates super-low and inflate the economy. But that’s basically a false drama, fueled largely by jittery traders who know their life blood could be in danger when the Fed finally starts to raise rates and roll backits “quantitative easing” program of buying massive amounts of bonds to infuse the economy and the markets with cash. No, the real story is that Bernanke — and whoever replaces him...

The most perfect monetary system humans have yet created was the world gold standard system of the late 19th century, roughly 1870-1914. We don’t have to hypothesize too much about what a new world gold standard system could look like. We can just look at what has already been done. Contrary to popular belief, people generally did not conduct commerce with gold coins. Yes, gold coins existed, but people mostly used paper banknotes and bank transfers, just as they do today. In 1910, gold coins comprised $591 million out of total currency (base money) of $3,149 million in the United...

The Fed announced further monetary stimulus with $45 billion Treasury purchases per month to on top of $40 billion in agency mortgage-backed securities purchases starting in January. But back to the Fed’s announcement. Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker. dissented for the eighth consecutive meeting, saying he opposed the asset purchase program. Lacker opposed the FOMC’s June decision to extend Operation Twist through the end of the year along with additional asset purchases, saying more bond buying probably won’t quicken economic growth. The Fed’s balance sheet is expected to grow, of course, beyond its current level of almost $3 trillion. According...

"I’ve been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do. The deficit is one.” — Ronald Reagan’s farewell address. _______________________ When Ronald Reagan was elected president the Dow Jones Industrial Average hovered around 1,000 (less than 2,800 inflation adjusted) — and had dipped, under President Carter, as low as 759. Unemployment stood at an unacceptable 7+%. The Soviet Union was aggressive, bellicose, and, in the eyes of the Western policy elite, could be but contained, not challenged. At the end of Reagan’s eight years in office, the Dow had tripled in value, on its way much higher. Job growth...

As is well known now, American Airlines filed for bankruptcy toward the end of last year. In one certain sense this shouldn’t surprise us given how its legacy competitors did much the same earlier in the new millennium. After that, the origins of our best-known and oldest air carriers perhaps foretold their modern problems in ways most don’t understand today. As T.A. Heppenheimer put it in his 1994 book Turbulent Skies, “Government actions brought forth the first air carriers in both Europe and the United States.” Rather than creations of the private sector, politicians formed notable carriers such as American...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The Federal Reserve on Wednesday, acting in the face of a weak economic outlook, decided to start a program to twist the yield curve by swapping shorter-maturity government securities for longer-dated ones. In a statement, the Fed will buy $400 billion of Treasury securities in the 6-30 year range and sell an equal amount of maturities of 3 years or less. The Fed also announced a new plan to purchase agency mortgage-backed securities with proceeds of maturing securities.

The Two Step Plan to National Economic Reform and RecoveryStep 1: Directs the Treasury Department to issue U.S. Notes (like Lincoln’s Greenbacks; can also be in electronic deposit format) to pay off the National debt.Step 2: Increases the reserve ratio private banks are required to maintain from 10% to 100%, thereby terminating their ability to create money, while simultaneously absorbing the funds created to retire the national debt.These two relatively simple steps, which Congress has the power to enact, would extinguish the national debt, without inflation or deflation, and end the unjust practice of private banks creating money as loans...

- By: Larry Walker, Jr. -The interest that U.S. taxpayers pay on behalf of the federal government, for the privilege of having money in our wallets, and to cover irresponsible deficit-spending, is only the beginning of our woes. When it comes to our personal credit needs, American citizens are once again shackled and sold down river. With regards to borrowing and lending, we may be able to take a few pointers from Islamic banking. I know what you’re thinking, but just bear with me. Let me make one thing clear, I am a Christian, and I do not agree with...

~ By: Larry Walker, Jr. ~The rich rule over the poor. The borrower is servant to the lender. ~ Proverbs 22:7 ~Free Our Money - So what’s the problem? You know, you think about it all the time. It’s debt, debt, debt! The way our economy is set up now, the only way it can grow is through incurring more debt, either by government, business or consumer borrowing. Our economy cannot grow without increasing its money supply, and the only way that new money can be introduced, under the present monetary system, is through debt. But growth through debt really...

Every scheme and every so-called compromise King Obama signs off on has but one goal. Redistribute from the rest of the world to US states and US voters via Fed monetary policy. Am I correct?

Absolutely wonderful (some language).

Don’t these men know the nasty history of central banks which monetize government deficits as the Fed is now doing? The QE2 left New York harbor yesterday, on its voyage to ports all around the globe. Captain Ben Bernanke has promised to shower the inhabitants of such diverse locales as Brazil, India, and China with up to $600 billion of free money. Following his departure, central banks in these countries announced that they did not want the money and will enact regulations to forbid the QE2 to land in their country. (Image) Such is the bizarre state of monetary policy...

Two years have passed since the worst financial crisis since the 1930s dealt a body blow to the world economy. Working with policymakers at home and abroad, the Federal Reserve responded with strong and creative measures to help stabilize the financial system and the economy. Among the Fed's responses was a dramatic easing of monetary policy - reducing short-term interest rates nearly to zero. The Fed also purchased more than a trillion dollars' worth of Treasury securities and U.S.-backed mortgage-related securities, which helped reduce longer-term interest rates, such as those for mortgages and corporate bonds.

Entitled "Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here", it is a warfare manual for defeating economic slumps by use of extreme monetary stimulus once interest rates have dropped to zero, and implicitly once governments have spent themselves to near bankruptcy. "snip>" Societe Generale's uber-bear Albert Edwards said the Fed and other central banks will be forced to print more money whatever they now say, given the "stinking fiscal mess" across the developed world. "The response to the coming deflationary maelstrom will be additional money printing that will make the recent QE seem insignificant," he said. Despite the apparent rift with...

WASHINGTON—Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke unveiled a new $100 bill equipped with two new security features. The bill will go into circulation Feb. 10, 2011. The Fed, along with the Treasury Department, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Secret Service, "continuously monitor the counterfeiting threats" for each denomination and redesign decisions are made based on those threats, Mr. Bernanke said.

The debate over free trade is riddled with myth after myth. One that keeps resurfacing, no matter how many times it is discredited, is the idea that protectionism caused the Great Depression. One occasionally even hears that this same protectionism -- specifically, the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 -- was responsible in significant part for World War Two! This is nonsense dreamed up for propaganda purposes by free traders, and it can easily be debunked. Let's start by reminding ourselves of a basic fact: The Depression's cause was monetary. The Federal Reserve had allowed the money supply to balloon excessively during...

Video interview of Gerald Celente about why Bernanke should not be reconfirmed.