Would Ron Paul really try to end the Fed?

[Karlis]

"What I want to do is legalize gold and silver, which is the proper monetary system," the only one permitted by the Constitution ... Paul says it's the only way to bring inflation under control."You can't have inflation without somebody artificially creating money and credit out of thin air." He blames the Fed for creating inflation by adding too much paper money to the economy.Read more...

[preacherman76]

Taking power from the fed to inflate/deflate money would basicaly end the fed.

[questionmark]

Sure, hell of a good idea... all we need is the politician to meddle with the currency to end up all sleeping in a wigwam.

[Karlis]

Sure, hell of a good idea... all we need is the politician to meddle with the currency to end up all sleeping in a wigwam.

Questionmark, what is your opinion of Ron Paul's opinions concerning the Fed? Is he making sense? Or what?

Karlis

[WoIverine]

Sure, hell of a good idea... all we need is the politician to meddle with the currency to end up all sleeping in a wigwam.

I'd rather sleep in a Wigwam than be sold into eventual slavery to the Chinese.

[questionmark]

Questionmark, what is your opinion of Ron Paul's opinions concerning the Fed? Is he making sense? Or what?

Karlis

Several tings are pretty utopic, the return to the gold standard, just as an example, only makes sense if there is enough gold to be able to redeem the money you have in the hand with it. At this point you would get 1/1500th Oz. for a dollar bill. So you could say there it makes no sense. Reducing the monetary amount would not work either as it would not leave enough money in the economy to be able to function.

The reason why the central bank is independent from politics is that they cannot pull an Idi Amin (What, got no more money? Then print some more!). Which sadly is happening anyway.

What is true is that the FED is not controlled enough and does not have a tight enough scope in its actions, besides that the Congressional oversight was pretty much lacking the last 30 years (no matter who was on the committee). That and the fact that politics actually managed to meddle in the Fed's affairs is what caused the problems they have now. It was enough that Greenspan uttered something unintelligible at the periodic hearing and everybody understood what he/he wanted to and everybody was happy. And Greenspan (as well as Bernanke) was always happy to comply with the politicians wishes.

What needs to be done is that the FED is audited by independent accountants ( I would suggest a jury duty kind of a thing but only accountants qualify) and that the FED gets a much tighter set of rules as to the scope and the desired results of their actions. Besides assessing whether they comply with the rules that govern them and that the books are clean the Congressional committee should have no way to meddle in any of its affairs.

But that won't happen.

[Corp]

I'm sure he'd like to try. Doubt very much he'd get anywhere.

[Karlis]

Several tings are pretty utopic, the return to the gold standard, just as an example, only makes sense if there is enough gold to be able to redeem the money you have in the hand with it. At this point you would get 1/1500th Oz. for a dollar bill. So you could say there it makes no sense. Reducing the monetary amount would not work either as it would not leave enough money in the economy to be able to function.

The reason why the central bank is independent from politics is that they cannot pull an Idi Amin (What, got no more money? Then print some more!). Which sadly is happening anyway.

What is true is that the FED is not controlled enough and does not have a tight enough scope in its actions, besides that the Congressional oversight was pretty much lacking the last 30 years (no matter who was on the committee). That and the fact that politics actually managed to meddle in the Fed's affairs is what caused the problems they have now. It was enough that Greenspan uttered something unintelligible at the periodic hearing and everybody understood what he/he wanted to and everybody was happy. And Greenspan (as well as Bernanke) was always happy to comply with the politicians wishes.

What needs to be done is that the FED is audited by independent accountants ( I would suggest a jury duty kind of a thing but only accountants qualify) and that the FED gets a much tighter set of rules as to the scope and the desired results of their actions. Besides assessing whether they comply with the rules that govern them and that the books are clean the Congressional committee should have no way to meddle in any of its affairs.

But that won't happen.

Question: why should the Fed -- a non-Government corporation -- have authority to print/provide monies to the Government, when the Constitution does not allow that?

[questionmark]

Question: why should the Fed -- a non-Government corporation -- have authority to print/provide monies to the Government, when the Constitution does not allow that?

I can't recall a national bank that is not independent in any industrialized country. The reason is that political influence and bickering has to stay out of monetary policy. Whether the bank is organized as a corporation (belonging 100% to the government) or as a non-directive-bound entity (the supreme court comes to mind) is quite irrelevant.