I know there are like 50 END the fed threads on ET. but hey what is one more. The one thing all these threads have in common. Is there is no alternative. I have yet to hear a credible alternative to the FED. I am not a fan of the FED, I won't cry if switch to another system. but I am getting very annoyed with this END the FED movement its bordering on cult like mania. Petitions books, everyone at the FED is an evil banker looking to steal from the average joe. I hear Greenspan bathes in the blood of Walmart employees to keep his looks. Ok. What is the alternative to the FED. I have yet to see one proposal or credible alternative to our current Central Bank, that will eliminate the END the FED complaints: 1) Continuing inflation of the currency 2) Secret bankers in charge of our money supply. 3) elimination of booms and busts. 4) Debt based economy. Keep in mind the following realities 1) We need a stable money supply and banking sector 2) We are currently a reserve currency. Whatever scheme do we come up with needs to satisfy the world that we are still a reserve currency, and will work to meet the global demand for dollars. Also, Don't give me the gold standard as a reply. Thats like saying we should give constitutional monarchy a try again.
I agree that right now the "anti-FED" sentiment is the flavor of the month. Everyone is an amature economist after viewing a few Celente videos, a couple of Coast to Coast AM episodes and going to shadowstats a few times. Do I think the FED is the perfect system??? No. But what are the alternatives. Anyone that thinks the Congress wouldn't sieze control of monetary policy if the FED was abolished, hasn't paid much attention to politics in the past 30 years.
if you want to control the value of the currency there other tools than credit. for example fiscal policy. i myself have developed an alternative called the current pension rebate. if you want an alternative to credit for saving and generating capital for business. i have developed an alternative called feps. although i will not go into detail there are alternatives to the current system. i could send you a copy of some of my work if you wish. i will also tell you that my work is currently being reviewed by the government in my country. i also sent a taxation model which had ways of controlling money supply and some other things that was reviewed by the ministry of finance in Czech Republic. the point is there are alternatives the people at the top are not paying full attention. if you want to see that taxation model i can give you a link to the program i wrote and the tutorial. i was trying to introduce a minimum income standard and system that people could download a do their taxes easily. would you like to see it.
As you likely know, the Fed came about in 1913 mandated with stable economy, full employment, etc., etc. Yet in 1929 you know what happened. You know what's happening now. There was a time we had no central banking and there were still economic imbalances that rectified themselves, but the impacts were dampened as compared to what has happened with the Fed at the helm. Sound economic policy dictates that sound money be part of the equation. We'd still have problems without the Fed, they just wouldn't be as severe. They are not needed.
There have always been booms & busts, no? I don't think it's fair to say "it would have been less severe". How do you know it wouldn't have been more severe, or that booms and busts wouldn't have been more frequent in the world economy without FED? I guess my point, is that it's far from perfect, but very favorable than having congress set monetary policy, which is EXACTLY what would ensue if the FED was abolished. I'm sure there are better alternatives, but that point is moot because they would be scrapped by congress, so that they controlled everything. That is very dangerous, IMO.
The current "end the fed" movement may be bordering a cult like mania. However the consensus of continuing with the fed's centrally planned economic policies is collective insanity.
How about: 1) Interest rates for everything set by the market. 2) Either end fractional reserve banking entirely, or fix bank reserve requirements at 25% or so. Max 4-1 base leverage (it's currently 10x afaik). 3) The treasury inflates the money supply at a regular pace by taking some fixed, arbitrary percentage (say 3%) of the current money supply as of Dec. 31st, and mails a check to a million random individual taxpayers for their portion of that amount. The system can only be changed with a three-quarters vote of Congress. 4) Increase regulation so IBanks aren't taking speculative bets with insured funds, etc. That seems like a far more stable system than what we've got now.
There will always be booms and busts, but logically their magnitude is going to depend heavily on the amount of leverage in the system. Essentially we've been averaging down for about 30 years, and everybody knows what eventually happens when you keep averaging down, building up to a massively overleveraged position.... If you reduce the overall leverage in the economy, both booms and busts will be smoothed out.
Your point regarding Congress is well taken, but this is what the Constitution calls for. We need to elect financially literate people to Washington and the current situation may be catalyst for that to occur. However, you ask how I know the bumps would be less severe. Because they were before the Fed. There was no Great Depression before the Fed came along.