Part of a typical investigation is a pretty detailed examination of your financial status and habits for the very reasons you mentioned. If you start getting into financial trouble, you can expect them to find out over the course of your reinvestigation. Regardless of the cause, it's unstable finances that are the problem. Just monitor those.
Yes, it was abundantly clear that Bush simply had no choice other than starting a ground campaign to topple and replace the Iraqi government. We were all just fresh out of ideas by the time it all started.
Ok, got it. Damaging the FBI or the CIA or the military is bad, but damaging the Administration that runs them is good. Got it makes perfect sense. (not)
No, materially damaging the country and its people is bad. Embarrassing its leaders by pointing out that they're doing ridiculous stuff when they'd rather keep it secret is not bad. Ending some bonehead's political career by drawing attention to a bad decision he made is not analogous to leaking information that puts troops in danger or puts US interests at risk. HTH.
Patents don't give a monopoly for curing a given disease, they give a monopoly on ONE way to cure the disease. If the "market" for a given pathology is large enough, it will incite competitors to develop alternative (better?) treatments.
If it cost $X to discover the first (and possibly the easiest to discover) treatment, and doing it first gets you a 100% monopoly until somebody catches up, that $X is worthwhile. The next company has to spend $X (or possibly more) to join in and become a duopoly, which is likely worth significantly less. If I were a pharmaceutical company, I would spend my $X on another market entirely and try to become the dominant player instead of struggling upstream for table scraps.
I generally agree with your overall premise, but I think that you're painting an idealized picture of how money is allotted for research.
After the battle of Midway, some dumbass editor in the midwest, can't remember which, reported that the key to winning was the breaking of the Japanese code.
You can't seriously be suggesting that pointing out that our government was doing blatantly evil things and completely mishandling prisoners is analogous to leaking critical wartime intelligence, are you? Here's the difference: I *want* my government to break the enemy's codes and keep the fact that they've done it a secret. I *don't* want my government rounding up people, secretly torturing them, and generall acting like some backward bananna republic dictatorship. If they do the former, keep it secret. If they do the latter, blow the whistle on them.
Think about it. Every Administration makes mistakes. Many things they do can be misinterpreted by reporters and editors than have shown by emprical evidence to be not so bright. Regardless, they should all think...what good will come of this being published in this time of war? Will this help our effort to WIN? If not, then take a little responsibility and make some of that shared sacrafice they all keep whining about and DON'T PUBLISH!
Sometimes, when the government is doing evil things, they need to be called on it. I propose a simple litmus test. What kind of damage is caused by relasing information? If it causes embarrassment to our leadership and a general change in perception of our leadership abroad, that's not a material screw up that can be blamed on the media. It's the fault of whoever sanctioned the embarrassing activity. On the other hand, if they're leaking information that materially changes the balance of power in combat, it should be kept quiet.
So here's an interesting question: Should this guy be kept quiet?
And, guess what? cost of the EV-SSL, along with payments to banks, credit card processors, etc... are just a part of the cost of doing business.
Well, they're a cost that provides no tangible service or benefit. So they're more like an artificial and arbitrary barrier to entry whereby we transfer extra money to Verisign for... well... because Verisign deserves our money more than we do. If the only "benefit" a product provides is to protect you from the negative side effects of that product's existence, it's not really a product. It's more like extortion.
The reason frivolous lawsuits exist is because business owners attempt to skimp out on their responsibilities to begin with. If you acted morally towards the people coming on to your property there'd be no grounds for a lawsuit.
I think that you and the rest of us are using different working definitions for the word "frivolous."
What if the warrant is denied? Would everyone be happy if the Bush admin suddenly submitted all the taps it has done since 2000 to a FISA court? Granted, I'm sure the court would be overwhelmed for a time, but will charges be brought for all those that are not approved? What's the point on oversight as hindsight?
One point is that it creates a record of the tap having happened at all. That means that if you're going to be abusing your power, you should expect records of it to exist somewhere that is not directly under your jurisdiction. Second, it keeps taps that should not be allowed from going on too long. If I'm an out of control executive and I start tapping your phone just to see if I can dig something up on you, I'm going to keep going until something shows up. Without judicial oversight at some point in the process, I *never* have to stop tapping you. A judge should be able to say, "OK. You've had your X days. This clearly isn't going anywhere, so you need to stop now."
The more important question is, why not have oversight in hindsight? I can think of only two reasons: 1) The powers that be don't want any records of their wiretaps that they themselves cannot hide/destroy/deny. 2) The powers that be want to continue with long term wiretaps that they know would never hold up in court. Neither is particularly palatable to me.
And this will be met with millions of slashdotters claiming that their civil rights are being taken away because the administration gets to control what kinds of information comes out of one of the agencies it controls.
Unless there's a legitimate national security or public policy concern, I expect to have access to any information my tax dollars pay to collect. There may be legitimate exceptions, but those have nothing to do with which agencies are controlled by whom.
Well lets see here.. you could go look and see who owns the national debt.. because MOST of it is the Federal Reserve.
That's simply not true. Unless a *tremendous* amount has changed since 2000, the lion's share (90+ percent) of public debt is not in the hands of the Federal Reserve. In 2000, 8.7% of government bonds were held by the Fed. The Fed also rebates most of the interest back to the government.
Why is that? Because when America needs money for say.. a war.. we ask the Fed for a loan for full face value + interest + the printing cost. We could just have congress print the money as it states in the constitution and as we have done before. Both devalue the dollar but only one puts the government in debt.
What you're suggesting is a tax. The government could very easily change the way it operates and simply print money when it needed it, but the net effect is that when you need $X to get that done, you'll be decreasing the value of the currency out there by a net of at least $X through inflation. Essentially, you're taxing people who hold cash. If that's the policy you want, I suppose you're welcome to it, but destabilizing the value of currency in order to avoid simply working to balance the budget in the first place seems short sighted.
Why would we make debt when we don't have to? This system does not work out in the American peoples favor.
Currency stability. I agree that the better way to manage it is not to have huge budged deficits in the first place, but just printing money doesn't make the problem go away. It just causes the dollar to be unstable and acts as a back door tax on people who happen to be holding dollars at the time. Better to tax upfront with some sort of meaningful tax policy than to cause rampant inflation and let the chips fall where they may.
Is it so crazy to suggest that congress just prints the money and makes it legal tender backed by its ability to collect taxes without paying a private bank a loan on it? I don't see why this is a hard sell to people and people who mention it are instantly labeled idiots and anarchists out to destroy this country. I love this place, but this long standing system of debt wrong.
Well, yes, it is sort of crazy. Giving Congress the ability to issue money whenever they want gives total control over monetary policy to a governing body that (1) has no clue how to conduct healthy monetary policy and (2) has a strong incentive to print money without any regard for the consequences. As the system stands now, we're not really losing anything to the Fed, and any money that Congress borrows ends up in bonds on the open market. The net result is that there is a measurable amount of debt, the value of the dollar and rate of inflation are reasonably well controlled, and Congress has to *go into debt* when they do something stupid rather than running the presses and taking their mistake out on the American economy when nobody is looking. Anyway, the Fed is technically a private corporation, but it is a highly regulated non-profit system that is essentially just another government department. People who rail against it are often called idiots because it's pretty clear that they have no idea as to the particulars of how the system works. For example, where did you get the idea that the Fed was holding most of our debt??
The good news is.. if the 16th admenment was ruled unconstitutional then.. it wouldn't start being against the law today.. it would have never been a law to begin with.. so we don't have to pay the debt at all.. (if that were even possible.)
I don't really see what the 16th Amendment has to do with this, but I strongly doubt that any repeal of the Federal Reserve system would have a significant effect on the debt we have in bond form. Most of it is out there, circulating in money markets. If we just default on it, I'd consider it the beginning of the end for our economy. It would cause an international financial crisis of unheard of proportions.
Though it may be interesting to verify why some cultures don't have the "great flood" story, that can be explained in many ways - one could be as simple as stories being forgotten over time.
A lot of cultures appear to have cruised along uninterrupted (as in: not exterminated) since before the time of the flood until long after the flood. You would think that they would have noticed their own complete annihilation.
But since some cultures do mention the "great flood" story - and it is not something that "could" happen to them - they mention it as something that *did* happen to them. So you cannot just wish that story away by calling it exaggerated unless you have the proof to indicate that it is indeed an exaggerated story. Or are you prejudging this because it does not fall in line with your favourite theory/viewpoint?
No, I'm weighing two possibilities: 1) A giant flood occurred without producing any evidence that it did and the stories (although inconsistent) are true. 2) A giant flood did not occur, but it's a common theme in stories like demon possession causing illness, deities who throw lightning, and people being changed into animals. The common themes may be compelling, but the lack of geological evidence and the general physical problems that come from a worldwide flood, I'm strongly leaning toward #2.
There are a lot of common themes in legends around the world. I think that most of those themes can be explained more easily by looking at the commonalities between societies and the behavior of the human psyche than by simply assuming that the stories are all true.
If it's any consolation, I thought "I HAVE SINNED!!!! GIVE ME MONEY!" was the funniest thing I've read all day.
Of course, I read slashdot with a huge bonus given to funny posts. I don't come here for the occasional insightful comment or expert's insider opinion. It's mostly just geeks spouting off. Geeks spouting off can be pretty damned hilarious, and that's good enough for me. Maybe we should give separate karma for people who score high on "funny" posts. I'd love to be able to assign a +1 modifier to people who are consistently entertaining.
The "insightful" stuff around here is wrong half the time anyway.
What evolut[i]on does not claim: 1. Jesus was a monkey.
Disclaimer: bad flamebait follows...
But creationists claim that banana was designed with God's favorite species in mind so that they can easily handle it. Nobody can argue that banana is the favorite meal of monkeys so it must be designed for them. Everybody knows that God created his favorite species according to himself. Jesus was (is) the Gods son, therefore:
Jesus must be a chimp. Tsk, tsk. What would Freud say about this line of argument?
When you are referring to Evolution as a fact, I think you mean Adaptation.
This is a fascinating phenomenon. If you talk to a biologist, he'll most likely laugh at this claim. Evolutionary changes exist on a continuum. Creationists have taken that portion of the continuum that is so obvious that nobody could argue against it (even though creationists were more than happy to fight it back in the good old days) and renamed it "adaptation" to separate it off and keep evolution as a dirty word. They have yet to come up with a convincing definition that separates the two, but they'll cling to the difference because without it, there's no goalpost moving.
Control by controlling the buying and selling of goods and services. If you're Christian (I'm not) I'd refer you to the book of revelations. But by controlling trade in the world, you control the haves, wants and especially the needs of the world. There are entire populations of the world starving and dying of diseases that would otherwise be rather trivial to treat if only the REST of the world were as "above money" as the Fed is.
The Fed is only "above money" in the sense that it doesn't have a limited amount of money to spend. On the other hand, it doesn't actually spend that money. If you had an organization that was creating vast amounts of money and spending it to acquire meaningful assets or services, that would be one issue. Since the Fed doesn't really spend money, the whole point is moot. There's a difference between money and wealth. The Fed only creates money. The problems you're referring to require wealth to fix. And the Fed doesn't control the buying and selling of goods and services. It merely keeps inflation more or less stable as our economy grows and shrinks. That's all.
Life is meaningless to God since he creates it. Money is meaningless to the Fed since they create it. God enjoys the power of life because it makes him feel god-like and all-mighty. The Fed... well, you can see the parallels I'm drawing.
Yes, but are they meaningful parallels? The Fed is just a highly regulated bank that sets a few constants in our economy. Nothing more. It's not a living, thinking entity. The people who run it have limited power for a limited time and tremendous responsibility comes with it.
I find it rather fascinating that you'd go through all of this detail for all other things and attempt to make little of humanity's most basic and fundamental ambition which is world domination at any and all costs. We kill for money on a regular and frequent basis. There is no end to the horrors people are willing to perform to get it. But somehow "the fed" is above that.
As I said, the Fed can create money, but it can't go out and spend the money. In fact, even if the Fed could spend the money it creates on anything other than open market operations, it wouldn't do any good in the long run, because in the end, money is money, not wealth. The Fed is simply not capable of dominating the world, and even though you seem convinced that it can, you can't seem to come up with a way it might bring about its dominance. The reason I went into the detail is because there are a lot of people who seem confused and mystified by the workings of what is essentially a large, non-profit bank whose job is to keep the economy running smoothly. I was hoping that maybe some people would learn something about how the system really works and why it's set up the way it is.
The only thing we, the people have, is levels of accountability to control the people that regulate our lives. Where the fed is concerned, we have far less than we are willing to admit.
If the Fed goes bannanas, Congress can shut it down before the end of the business day. If it starts acting funny, Congress can change the rules and audit every line of text the Fed has ever produced. There's no power beyond what Congress gives them, and there's no lack of accountability beyond what Congress allows there to be. If somebody can come up with a viable conspiracy theory that actually has a mechanism behind it, there might be reason for concern. As it stands, the people who seem to worry the most are the people who understand the least about how the system actually works.
Where the fed is concerned, we have far less than we are willing to admit. And sure, the case is made frequently that the fed is virtually free from the influence of partisan politics and all that. But no one say anything about the influence and steering coming from the other side.
The four points you mention are key to maintaining the independence of the Fed's decision making processes from political tampering. I'm sure that the Fed could be more transparent, but I should point out that at some of the points raised are not entirely accurate. FOMC meeting transcripts are eventually released, but they are released with a lag time of 5 years. Market watchers would *love* to know for certain what the FOMC is about to do and how it plans to do it because they could reap enormous profits my making such predictions.
I guess the fundamental question here is, what type of transactions should we be looking for? Weapons inspectors are looking for very specific things when they audit a country. What, specifically, do you suggest the GAO should be looking at that is not currently available? Next, how are those things ripe for abuse, and what would the cost of making them public (in a timely manner) be? A lot of government organizations are exempt from a lot of types of oversight (think NSA). That doesn't mean that they are totally without oversight. I'm all for not trusting government any further than I have to, but you'd have to come up with a concrete description of the type of abuse you're looking for before I get too worked up over the fact that we're not looking for it. The types of abuse I would specifically be looking for are things like Ben Bernanke making investments in currencies or taking payments from currency speculators before the FOMC manipulates the money supply, and we're pretty careful about not letting that happen.
You did get me on the audit thing to a degree I didn't actually know there was "some" audit... just never a complete and meaningful one.
Your choice of sources and claims leads me to believe that most of your knowledge about our central banking system is not necessarily coming from the most mainstream of sources. You might want to consider doing some basic background reading on the topic before you delve too deep in with the "everybody is crazy but me" crowd. I suppose that a lot of people would have you believe that those sources are in on the conspiracy and that I, as somebody with an economics degree, am also either a dupe or in on it, but you might seriously want to dig into some of this stuff. See the above paragraph for discussion of whether or not the audits are meaningful.
But you seem to be a real supporter of the federal reserve bank corporation. Asside from the false notion of "keeping money out of the hands of the spenders" why would it be a good idea to have a federal reserve bank corporation that keeps its inner workings a secret from the U.S. people? And the reason I say false notion is that #1 the member banks, both foreign and domestic are regular contributors to political parties and candidates.
I support the Fed because it appears to be run by policy experts and the alternatives aren't pretty. As I see it, the alternatives are:
1) Allow Congress to decide on the quantity of fiat money available in the market. This is ripe for abuse because Congress would try to protect their jobs by forcing us into an inflationary spiral that would tank our economy. Alternately, Congress would take payoffs for monetary policy the same way they take payoffs for crappy laws. Alternatively, Congress is full of angels who want the best for the country, but putting them in charge of monetary policy would be like putting a chimpanzee at the controls of a crashing starship.
2) Do away with fiat money entirely and return to commodity money. It surprises me that people who are uneasy about letting a bunch of economists decide on the quantity of money in the economy are totally OK with allowing the ability of miners to find gold (read: very near random ass luck) decide the very same thing.
Neither of those seems particularly palatable to me. As for your remark about "member banks" you still aren't understanding what that means.
Pretty strong indication that he either doesn't have the choice about who he can select from and/or he doesn't actually make the selection himself. His history of cronyism shows where this is inconsistant with his normal behavior.
I would agree that politically, he doesn't have much of a choice. I was honestly expecting some sort of nutty, fringe pseudo-economist and was pleasantly surprised to find a highly qualified banking expert selected instead. Even the mighty George Bush has to bow to popular reaction to unpopular appointments from time to time (see Harriet Meiers). The Fed Chair is important enough that people wouldn't let it slide.
Yeah, they are somehow "above" the money since they make it... what else could they be in it for? Uhmmm control? domination? Money is the tool and the means, not the object.
Control and domination of what, exactly? Our precious bodily fluids?
Furthermore, why should government employees pay taxes since their income is supposed to come from taxes in the first place? They too should be exempt from paying taxes... they aren't.
Hmmm... no? The whole point is that value in money is a meaningless construct for the Fed, and allowing Congress to tax it would be giving Congress a blank check to print money (because that's *exactly* what the Fed would do to pay any taxes levied against it). Government employees pay taxes because the use government services like the rest of us do. You can't simply take taxes out of their paycheck beforehand because different taxes are earmarked for different programs. A government employee's salary typically doesn't come from an amalgamation of tariffs, duties, gas taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, etc.
It's the duty and responsibility of Congress to audit the Federal Reserve Corporation and strangely, it has never happened.
The GAO has audited the Federal Reserve a number of times. You can find the audits listed in the Fed's Annual Report.
Interest-free? Uh. Don't think so.
The reserves that the Federal Reserve requires member banks to leave on deposit accrue no interest. You're simply wrong there.
The banks themselves have a profit motive requirement by law since they are for-profit organizations. Their aim is to maximize their profits through their activities. It's *NOT* a government agency and the fact that you'd assert that something that isn't one but "is for all practical purposes" is laughable.
I strongly suspect that you're confusing the Federal Reserve Banks with Federal Reserve member banks. The two are not the same. The former are non-profit quasi-government organizations. The latter are private for-profit enterprises with none of the powers or responsibilities of the Federal Reserve system. The fact that you find it laughable is probably more due to confusion on your part than anything else.
If that's true, then since we pay more than 50% of our income in taxes (and I mean ALL taxes, not just the IRS-collected stuff) then we're what "for all practical purposes?" "Slaves" isn't quite the right word for it, but it's the best I can do on short notice.
I would say that we are citizens who pay for public goods (and a lot of pork). This statement doesn't follow from the above, though.
Do you buy gasoline? I know I do. Didn't you think the virtually unexplained drop in gasoline prices were strange just prior to election time? And then after the election it started creeping back again. I'd say that was a pretty strong amount of economical manipulation even if it was highly focused.
Are you blaming the Fed for changes in gas prices? I'd love to hear the mechanism you propose for that one. My theory: Yes, it was manipulation. Yes, it was done to affect elections. No, it wasn't the
Ahh, the always insightful third party "experts" at WND come to the rescue. I appreciate that they warned me that tofu will make my children gay earlier this week, and I'm equally glad that they're here to warn me that, contrary to all mainstream sources and reason, the Chinese are planning to tank their economy by making exchange rate changes severe enough to cause us to change our currency.
The reality is, the Chinese prop up the dollar because it's good for exports, and they may reduce the degree to which they do it (due partially to US pressure to do so), but they're not going to simply dump dollar reserves and send our economy (and theirs) spiraling. Doing so would make no sense. And there is no conspiracy to create the Amero. The idea that there is may sell well to people who think that the UN is going to invade and make us all eat French cheeses and force us all into same sex marriages, but that's a whole different story.
I get the impression that a lot of these ideas stem from confusion as to what a central bank is supposed to do and how it is different from other banks.
There's talk about the president nominating the chair of the Federal Reserve [corporation!] and all this but they say nothing about what are the qualifiers might be for being nominated. They are bankers already a part of the Federal Reserve Corporation of course... they are just rearranging the deck chairs on our titanic and it really doesn't matter who they name -- it's all the same people.
The President appoints members of the Board of Governors, just like any number of other positions. They're generally bankers and academics who--surprise--know about banking, economics, and international finance. The position itself doesn't allow them to enrich themselves, though. For example, the Board of Governors is severely restricted in the type of investment they can do while in office for one obvious reason: It's a severe conflict of interest. I get the impression from your post that you're suspicious of some sort of conflict of interest here. I think you may be unaware of exactly how little incentive the Board of Governors to make decisions that are not in the best interests of the US economy.
As for qualifications, I suggest that you look at Dr. Bernanke's credentials. Sure, I suppose the President could nominate the head of the Arabian Horse Association if he wanted, but this job is a little more important than that, and even our current "Screw public opinion" administration had the good sense to nominate a highly qualified individual.
And finally, a question to those who know more than I do on this subject: Does the Federal Reserve Bank coporation pay taxes? If yes, how much? If no, why not?
The Federal Reserve is not a profit making entity. It can create or destroy money whenever it wants, so the whole idea that it should pay taxes or that it's somehow scheming to make a bunch of money off the backs of the people is nonsensical. For all practical purposes, it's just another government agency regulating another aspect of American commerce. It should also be noted that stock in the Federal Reserve Banks cannot be traded. It can only be owned by member banks, who are paid a dividend on their shares, essentially as compensation for the interest-free money that the Fed holds in the fractional reserve system.
The fact that the Board of Governors is not directly answerable to our elected officials keeps them from being tempted to do exactly the sort of thing you seem to be accusing them of. If that weren't the case, you'd have the President or Congress manipulating the economy around election time. It would be a huge mess of political corruption and cronyism.
Read the book. The Depression was a result of the Fed's bungling. The US was very prosperous in the 19th century.
Well, the Fed did severely bungle the whole Great Depression situation, but that doesn't mean that the Depression isn't an example of exactly how hard deflation can burn you. As for the 19th century, gold stores were expanding, so there was no serious drag on the money supply at the time. By the late 19th century, the lack of gold discoveries were definitely putting the squeeze on gold standard economies. The US was not exactly what I would call "prosperous" in the 1890s. You just need to get used to that kind of thing when you put an upper limit on economic growth based only on mankind's ability to dig up a particular metal.
The US currently has negotiators in China trying to convince them not to dump their dollars on the market lest the value plummet and send us into a depression deeper than the 30s.
Cite? There's definitely a lot to think about when it comes to Chinese exchange rate manipulations, but I don't see any reason to think that the negotiations are exactly what you're describing.
Slashdot Mirror
Part of a typical investigation is a pretty detailed examination of your financial status and habits for the very reasons you mentioned. If you start getting into financial trouble, you can expect them to find out over the course of your reinvestigation. Regardless of the cause, it's unstable finances that are the problem. Just monitor those.
Yes, it was abundantly clear that Bush simply had no choice other than starting a ground campaign to topple and replace the Iraqi government. We were all just fresh out of ideas by the time it all started.
I generally agree with your overall premise, but I think that you're painting an idealized picture of how money is allotted for research.
Absolutely brilliant. Consider that line stolen.
Sometimes, when the government is doing evil things, they need to be called on it. I propose a simple litmus test. What kind of damage is caused by relasing information? If it causes embarrassment to our leadership and a general change in perception of our leadership abroad, that's not a material screw up that can be blamed on the media. It's the fault of whoever sanctioned the embarrassing activity. On the other hand, if they're leaking information that materially changes the balance of power in combat, it should be kept quiet.
So here's an interesting question: Should this guy be kept quiet?
The more important question is, why not have oversight in hindsight? I can think of only two reasons: 1) The powers that be don't want any records of their wiretaps that they themselves cannot hide/destroy/deny. 2) The powers that be want to continue with long term wiretaps that they know would never hold up in court. Neither is particularly palatable to me.
What you're suggesting is a tax. The government could very easily change the way it operates and simply print money when it needed it, but the net effect is that when you need $X to get that done, you'll be decreasing the value of the currency out there by a net of at least $X through inflation. Essentially, you're taxing people who hold cash. If that's the policy you want, I suppose you're welcome to it, but destabilizing the value of currency in order to avoid simply working to balance the budget in the first place seems short sighted.
Currency stability. I agree that the better way to manage it is not to have huge budged deficits in the first place, but just printing money doesn't make the problem go away. It just causes the dollar to be unstable and acts as a back door tax on people who happen to be holding dollars at the time. Better to tax upfront with some sort of meaningful tax policy than to cause rampant inflation and let the chips fall where they may.
Well, yes, it is sort of crazy. Giving Congress the ability to issue money whenever they want gives total control over monetary policy to a governing body that (1) has no clue how to conduct healthy monetary policy and (2) has a strong incentive to print money without any regard for the consequences. As the system stands now, we're not really losing anything to the Fed, and any money that Congress borrows ends up in bonds on the open market. The net result is that there is a measurable amount of debt, the value of the dollar and rate of inflation are reasonably well controlled, and Congress has to *go into debt* when they do something stupid rather than running the presses and taking their mistake out on the American economy when nobody is looking. Anyway, the Fed is technically a private corporation, but it is a highly regulated non-profit system that is essentially just another government department. People who rail against it are often called idiots because it's pretty clear that they have no idea as to the particulars of how the system works. For example, where did you get the idea that the Fed was holding most of our debt??
I don't really see what the 16th Amendment has to do with this, but I strongly doubt that any repeal of the Federal Reserve system would have a significant effect on the debt we have in bond form. Most of it is out there, circulating in money markets. If we just default on it, I'd consider it the beginning of the end for our economy. It would cause an international financial crisis of unheard of proportions.
No, I'm weighing two possibilities: 1) A giant flood occurred without producing any evidence that it did and the stories (although inconsistent) are true. 2) A giant flood did not occur, but it's a common theme in stories like demon possession causing illness, deities who throw lightning, and people being changed into animals. The common themes may be compelling, but the lack of geological evidence and the general physical problems that come from a worldwide flood, I'm strongly leaning toward #2.
There are a lot of common themes in legends around the world. I think that most of those themes can be explained more easily by looking at the commonalities between societies and the behavior of the human psyche than by simply assuming that the stories are all true.
If it's any consolation, I thought "I HAVE SINNED!!!! GIVE ME MONEY!" was the funniest thing I've read all day.
Of course, I read slashdot with a huge bonus given to funny posts. I don't come here for the occasional insightful comment or expert's insider opinion. It's mostly just geeks spouting off. Geeks spouting off can be pretty damned hilarious, and that's good enough for me. Maybe we should give separate karma for people who score high on "funny" posts. I'd love to be able to assign a +1 modifier to people who are consistently entertaining.
The "insightful" stuff around here is wrong half the time anyway.
1. Jesus was a monkey.
Disclaimer: bad flamebait follows...
But creationists claim that banana was designed with God's favorite species in mind so that they can easily handle it. Nobody can argue that banana is the favorite meal of monkeys so it must be designed for them. Everybody knows that God created his favorite species according to himself. Jesus was (is) the Gods son, therefore:
Jesus must be a chimp. Tsk, tsk. What would Freud say about this line of argument?
The Fed is only "above money" in the sense that it doesn't have a limited amount of money to spend. On the other hand, it doesn't actually spend that money. If you had an organization that was creating vast amounts of money and spending it to acquire meaningful assets or services, that would be one issue. Since the Fed doesn't really spend money, the whole point is moot. There's a difference between money and wealth. The Fed only creates money. The problems you're referring to require wealth to fix. And the Fed doesn't control the buying and selling of goods and services. It merely keeps inflation more or less stable as our economy grows and shrinks. That's all.
Yes, but are they meaningful parallels? The Fed is just a highly regulated bank that sets a few constants in our economy. Nothing more. It's not a living, thinking entity. The people who run it have limited power for a limited time and tremendous responsibility comes with it.
As I said, the Fed can create money, but it can't go out and spend the money. In fact, even if the Fed could spend the money it creates on anything other than open market operations, it wouldn't do any good in the long run, because in the end, money is money, not wealth. The Fed is simply not capable of dominating the world, and even though you seem convinced that it can, you can't seem to come up with a way it might bring about its dominance. The reason I went into the detail is because there are a lot of people who seem confused and mystified by the workings of what is essentially a large, non-profit bank whose job is to keep the economy running smoothly. I was hoping that maybe some people would learn something about how the system really works and why it's set up the way it is.
If the Fed goes bannanas, Congress can shut it down before the end of the business day. If it starts acting funny, Congress can change the rules and audit every line of text the Fed has ever produced. There's no power beyond what Congress gives them, and there's no lack of accountability beyond what Congress allows there to be. If somebody can come up with a viable conspiracy theory that actually has a mechanism behind it, there might be reason for concern. As it stands, the people who seem to worry the most are the people who understand the least about how the system actually works.
I guess the fundamental question here is, what type of transactions should we be looking for? Weapons inspectors are looking for very specific things when they audit a country. What, specifically, do you suggest the GAO should be looking at that is not currently available? Next, how are those things ripe for abuse, and what would the cost of making them public (in a timely manner) be? A lot of government organizations are exempt from a lot of types of oversight (think NSA). That doesn't mean that they are totally without oversight. I'm all for not trusting government any further than I have to, but you'd have to come up with a concrete description of the type of abuse you're looking for before I get too worked up over the fact that we're not looking for it. The types of abuse I would specifically be looking for are things like Ben Bernanke making investments in currencies or taking payments from currency speculators before the FOMC manipulates the money supply, and we're pretty careful about not letting that happen.
Your choice of sources and claims leads me to believe that most of your knowledge about our central banking system is not necessarily coming from the most mainstream of sources. You might want to consider doing some basic background reading on the topic before you delve too deep in with the "everybody is crazy but me" crowd. I suppose that a lot of people would have you believe that those sources are in on the conspiracy and that I, as somebody with an economics degree, am also either a dupe or in on it, but you might seriously want to dig into some of this stuff. See the above paragraph for discussion of whether or not the audits are meaningful.
I support the Fed because it appears to be run by policy experts and the alternatives aren't pretty. As I see it, the alternatives are:
1) Allow Congress to decide on the quantity of fiat money available in the market. This is ripe for abuse because Congress would try to protect their jobs by forcing us into an inflationary spiral that would tank our economy. Alternately, Congress would take payoffs for monetary policy the same way they take payoffs for crappy laws. Alternatively, Congress is full of angels who want the best for the country, but putting them in charge of monetary policy would be like putting a chimpanzee at the controls of a crashing starship.
2) Do away with fiat money entirely and return to commodity money. It surprises me that people who are uneasy about letting a bunch of economists decide on the quantity of money in the economy are totally OK with allowing the ability of miners to find gold (read: very near random ass luck) decide the very same thing.
Neither of those seems particularly palatable to me. As for your remark about "member banks" you still aren't understanding what that means.
I would agree that politically, he doesn't have much of a choice. I was honestly expecting some sort of nutty, fringe pseudo-economist and was pleasantly surprised to find a highly qualified banking expert selected instead. Even the mighty George Bush has to bow to popular reaction to unpopular appointments from time to time (see Harriet Meiers). The Fed Chair is important enough that people wouldn't let it slide.
Control and domination of what, exactly? Our precious bodily fluids?
Hmmm... no? The whole point is that value in money is a meaningless construct for the Fed, and allowing Congress to tax it would be giving Congress a blank check to print money (because that's *exactly* what the Fed would do to pay any taxes levied against it). Government employees pay taxes because the use government services like the rest of us do. You can't simply take taxes out of their paycheck beforehand because different taxes are earmarked for different programs. A government employee's salary typically doesn't come from an amalgamation of tariffs, duties, gas taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, etc.
The GAO has audited the Federal Reserve a number of times. You can find the audits listed in the Fed's Annual Report.
The reserves that the Federal Reserve requires member banks to leave on deposit accrue no interest. You're simply wrong there.
I strongly suspect that you're confusing the Federal Reserve Banks with Federal Reserve member banks. The two are not the same. The former are non-profit quasi-government organizations. The latter are private for-profit enterprises with none of the powers or responsibilities of the Federal Reserve system. The fact that you find it laughable is probably more due to confusion on your part than anything else.
I would say that we are citizens who pay for public goods (and a lot of pork). This statement doesn't follow from the above, though.
Are you blaming the Fed for changes in gas prices? I'd love to hear the mechanism you propose for that one. My theory: Yes, it was manipulation. Yes, it was done to affect elections. No, it wasn't the
Ahh, the always insightful third party "experts" at WND come to the rescue. I appreciate that they warned me that tofu will make my children gay earlier this week, and I'm equally glad that they're here to warn me that, contrary to all mainstream sources and reason, the Chinese are planning to tank their economy by making exchange rate changes severe enough to cause us to change our currency.
The reality is, the Chinese prop up the dollar because it's good for exports, and they may reduce the degree to which they do it (due partially to US pressure to do so), but they're not going to simply dump dollar reserves and send our economy (and theirs) spiraling. Doing so would make no sense. And there is no conspiracy to create the Amero. The idea that there is may sell well to people who think that the UN is going to invade and make us all eat French cheeses and force us all into same sex marriages, but that's a whole different story.
I get the impression that a lot of these ideas stem from confusion as to what a central bank is supposed to do and how it is different from other banks.
As for qualifications, I suggest that you look at Dr. Bernanke's credentials. Sure, I suppose the President could nominate the head of the Arabian Horse Association if he wanted, but this job is a little more important than that, and even our current "Screw public opinion" administration had the good sense to nominate a highly qualified individual.
The Federal Reserve is not a profit making entity. It can create or destroy money whenever it wants, so the whole idea that it should pay taxes or that it's somehow scheming to make a bunch of money off the backs of the people is nonsensical. For all practical purposes, it's just another government agency regulating another aspect of American commerce. It should also be noted that stock in the Federal Reserve Banks cannot be traded. It can only be owned by member banks, who are paid a dividend on their shares, essentially as compensation for the interest-free money that the Fed holds in the fractional reserve system.
The fact that the Board of Governors is not directly answerable to our elected officials keeps them from being tempted to do exactly the sort of thing you seem to be accusing them of. If that weren't the case, you'd have the President or Congress manipulating the economy around election time. It would be a huge mess of political corruption and cronyism.
Cite? There's definitely a lot to think about when it comes to Chinese exchange rate manipulations, but I don't see any reason to think that the negotiations are exactly what you're describing.