Public Central Bank – Fire The Fed

    "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."
                                               Thomas Jefferson

    The current banking and Wall Street crisis is a direct result of a private central bank sytem. We are cursed with the deliberately mis-named "Federal" Reserve which is no more than a privatized and exclusive debt-money creation system devoid of public ownership. In this so-called "independent" institution there is no public interest or power within its privately-owned, profit-seeking, system.

    When the power to create "our" money is in private hands, and it is based on an exclusive franchise for debt-money creation and the sale of bonds at interest - as opposed to direct Treasury financing - then the entire economic and social system is set up for private profit at public expense. As history has proven, this structure is virtually guaranteed to result in endless predation, corruption, and eventual collapse at public expense.

   The founders of this country well understood this very problem and so, in their wisdom, put the "purse powers" in the hands of the most democratic body – i.e., Congress – exactly so the people would have the right and power to vote on their monetary policy every two years, course correct their own society and economy, and escape the predictable ruin of a private debt-money system under which we have no alternative or escape.

    Today, however, under "our" private central bank system we have no such public privilege or power. We are powerless at the hands of the real owners of the "Federal’ Reserve – i.e., the major investment banks and historic banking families both here and abroad. These are the very people and institutions who have profited, geared the structure to their endless, debt-money, advantage and proceeded to rape the system until it collapses and the public is forced to "rescue" the very predators and criminals at the helm. In any case, this is an immense, society-controlling, power no such private entity should ever have.

     It’s the structure, stupid.

     Despite the overwhelming and recurrent failures of this privatized system, the current bailout plans are being devised by these very same bankers to give the "Fed" even more powers and extend its reach world-wide – all to give a pretense of regulation and eliminate any vestiges of public money powers around the world. In the midst of this crisis, "our" Congress – fed by corporate money and cowed by a corporate press - may well succumb to giving exactly these expanding powers to the same group of international bankers responsible for this and every other monetary crisis.

     Clearly, the time is ripe to fire the Fed. We must take its stock under public ownership, if for no other reason then this being the price of these public bailouts, and to prevent these occurences in the future – all of which stem from a lightly or completely unregulated, private, banking system acting to privatize profits and socialize losses. Moral hazard is thus endless and systemic under this structure.

    "The bank was saved but the money was ruined."

                      William Gouge (1796-1863)

      "You gotta start executin’ a few of those white fuckin’ bankers"

                                        George Carlin

    The immense costs of todays bailouts mean more bonds have to be sold, more deficit financing, more commissions earned by the big bank Fed owners, more currency ruin, and more interest payable to foreigners on our "public" debt. Interest on interest, and debt on top of debt until collapse occurs is exactly where a private central bank system takes us, particularly within a political system driven by corporate power and money.

     In effect, this setup is the driver of the veritable Kondratieff wave – i.e., a predictable, recurring, boom-bust phenomena deriving from the structure as we know it.

     Nevertheless, the fact we have a private central bank called the Federal Reserve is still taken by many economists, and those attached to their ruling-elite sponsored positions, as a given is perpelexing at best, and devious at worst. Despite that fact the founders of this nation had seen the predations worked upon England and other countries by private central bankers today’s crop of ruling-elite sycophants continue to ignore the issue and our Constitution’s clear mandate for public "purse powers."   

   "The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe." 

                                     Abraham Lincoln  

    Clearly, a public central bank is a subject many go to great lengths to avoid today. In fear for their status and position they quickly poo-poo the idea – and this, as if the founders were idiots.

     Yet, in this crisis, for the first time in my memory we have more people now realizing the real nature of the problem - and so considering the very idea of a public central bank and returning to a Constitutional setup. Already, the massive debt and interest is public while the very malady-causing institution remains private and without audits of either institution or its mega-rich and powerful owners. To complete the coup, members of its own fed-owning institutions (Goldman-Sachs, et.al.) serve as "our" Treasury Secretaries in what is a massive conflict of interest and ongoing effort to prevent any real public interest or power in their system.

    As with any real reform, it takes outsiders to first broach the issue and then courageous legislators, journalists and media types to even discuss the possibility and reach the people. But have you ever seen a debate or read a thourough discussion of a public central bank in your newspaper or in the major media? Clearly not in this well-oiled oligarchy we call the USA.

    Today, however, the time is ripe and the issue is emerging. Like Holocaust deniers, however, there are those who pretend that a public central bank is somehow not possible or advisable, and so they run from the topic and even seek to punish those who pursue the issue.

    Nevertheless, their arguments fly in the face of those who wrote our Constitution and purposely gave the money creation powers to Congress, the people’s body – specifically so we would not be buried in interest-bearing debt, bailout costs, and beholden to bankers for the nation’s livelihood and advancement.

    Centuries of planned "panics," depressions, and recessions - all of which have caused immense enrichment for the few and immense loss to the nation and costs to future generations - have resulted in mind-boggling levels of interest bearing debt, inflation, and currency value destruction now bringing the nation to a financial armageddon.

    It is time we extricate ourselves from this costly, self-defeating, and utterly oligarchic system. Demand that your representative act, not to give greater powers to the banking elite, but seek to return the "Federal" Reserve stock and powers to We, The People.

Kent Welton,

PublicCentralBank.com