These questions have all been raised and quite intelligently debated earlier in this thread. My views would be closest to those of Maverick74. If you care you can go back and read. I have nothing more insightful to add than has already been brought to the fore. Thank you. Gringo
Well, he is on my ignore and I am not interested in whatever he has said. But since in the last 100 years America managed to became the world's leading super power and has won 2 world wars, I have to say, creating the feds must have been one of the best ideas. Life is also somehow got incredibly better for all Americans...
You win the best post of the year award 2014...so far. Finally, another posted referring to the logical fallacies that 'somehow' escape the grasp of 99% of the population. Is it ironic that the same 99% of people have not clue about logical fallacies, and that 99% of people are not the 1% that control the world's wealth? In order to be truly wealthy, you have to really educate YOURSELF. This doesn't mean getting As and Bs in public school. Public school and most private schools are the indoctrination training centers where they purposely don't teach you the logical fallacies(trivium, quadrivium, etc.). Generally it is only in the elite private schools where these can be found to be taught systematically, and even then not to everyone. This is why those of you who don't yet understand how to debunk rhetoric fall for things like the FED, that we "won" World Wars, that cancer is something very complex and unbeatable (and only treatable by AMA approved protocols), that traders win by buying and holding all of the time, that taxes are not slavery, and that the currency we borrow isn't fact a very powerful technology (although not an Iphone technology) that enslaves all but the most knowing. All of the former statements are false. They are taught to you under the pretense of logical fallacy, while you watch your football all day and drink your beer (bread and circuses), or whatever media contrived trance you were taught to use for your joy. I guess I don't mean YOU as everyone reading this, but to that guy who posted the FED is the reason America is great, that we "won" two world wars, etc. This is the kind of YOU I refer to. An ignoramous, not by his/her own fault, but by the training s/he received since birth, training to be blind and not have any tools to discern fact from rhetoric.
They hide facts from everybody and refuse to answer questions from Congress so they are NOT as described. I still think it's really, really, odd that the world's richest economy has had to borrow money to the point where it's borrowing massive amounts just to make the minimum payments and has NO hope at all of ever reducing the principal [without massive inflation].
And that is saying much after 1 day. Anyhow, with your lengthy winded post you somehow forgot to educate us why the existence of a central bank is evil? Name a country nowadays without a central bank. Also describe the situation of 2008 if the Fed hadn't saved the economy and pretty much capitalism itself, what would have happened??? Oh, the Dow would be around 3000 and there would be riots on the streets, but hey, maybe you are OK with that... I almost forgot:
Maybe without the FED's backstop things would have been different. If I had a sugar daddy I wouldn't worry about risk either.
Well if the FED would have left it alone and let all of the big banks fail in 2008, yes there would have been severe pain. But by now, I have to believe, that we would be getting back to normal. Instead the FED just kicked the can down the road a few year, all the while helping out the chosen few in the banking industry. Lets also mention that what caused the 2008 event was pure fraud by everyone in the mortgage mess. That is not capitalism that you speak of. Perhaps they will try it again when the latest bubble bursts. your comment about "pretty much saving capitalism itself" haha, this made me dedicate a comment to this quote. Capitalism you say?, explain to me what capitalism is again? because my understanding of capitalism is a free market, sort of like what I do in the market everyday, if I make a leveraged trade and it goes bad, I LOSE! What the Banks and the FED engaged in in 2008 is not capitalism, its fraud, and when the house of cards crumbled...it was welfare. Then there was the auto industry..haha, what complete morons they are. They make a product that doesn't sell, the capitalism free market determined that. If there was real capitalism, they should have been let go, if they wanted to be bailed out, they could have diluted the stock, sold debt. No, they decided to get bailed out by the FED. So basically the FED is a welfare program for the elites.
Oh, I reminiscence the good, ol' days, before the fed was born. Ah, the 19th century, those were the days! I make a fire in the fireplace, put on a cozy sweater, drink hot coco, and read stories of: --Panic of 1819, a U.S. recession with bank failures; culmination of U.S.'s first boom-to-bust economic cycle --Panic of 1837, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 5-year depression --Panic of 1857, a U.S. recession with bank failure --Panic of 1873, a U.S. recession with bank failures, followed by a 4-year depression --Panic of 1884, United States and Europe --Panic of 1893, a U.S. recession with bank failures --Panic of 1907, a U.S. economic recession with bank failures and I ask myself: Where have all the good times gone????? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banking_crises#19th_century ------------------------------------------------------- I agree. But just because it is not working as it should (like other central banks), that doesn't mean you have to abolish it. You just have to change it.... And yes, there is no true capitalism in the US, but it isn't just the Fed's fault. The whole political system is at fault... So I am fine with criticism of the Fed's actions, just let's not throw the baby out with the water...