Founding of the Federal Reserve

[HenryWallace]

I am reading "America's Bank, The epic Struggle to create the Fed" by Roger Lowenstein. I really appreciate the book's explanation of technical banking concepts and references to modern day parallels throughout. The long and winding road of the legislation is a great tale for history buffs in itself. But the more interesting thing to me is seeing how far we have come from the authors' intent

One thing is clear, the Fed has never been well understood by the American people, and this continues to this day. I often see Facebook posts about how Trump is going to close the Fed, etc. People don't realize what it is, who they are, or the extremely necessary functions of the "bankers bank".

It was born of a time when banking panics were common and everything was based on gold bars in a vault somewhere. Simpler times, for sure. In its creation, the main goals were improving, "financial plumbing" and to keep money elastic when a credit crunch occurred. The Fed continues to "plumb" our financial system, clearing checks, distributing bills, etc.

But today, the Fed's main sphere of influence is a little known provision that none of the bills authors could have envisioned being so important, setting interest rates. This doesn't even seem remotely considered at the time. It just goes to show how our country evolves

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

Back to the gold standard.

 

[tyroneweaver]

Ton of conspiracy theories out there over the federal reserve.

 

[MisterBeale]

Ton of conspiracy theories out there over the federal reserve.

Bullshit.

 

[MisterBeale]

I am reading "America's Bank, The epic Struggle to create the Fed" by Roger Lowenstein. I really appreciate the book's explanation of technical banking concepts and references to modern day parallels throughout. The long and winding road of the legislation is a great tale for history buffs in itself. But the more interesting thing to me is seeing how far we have come from the authors' intent

One thing is clear, the Fed has never been well understood by the American people, and this continues to this day. I often see Facebook posts about how Trump is going to close the Fed, etc. People don't realize what it is, who they are, or the extremely necessary functions of the "bankers bank".

It was born of a time when banking panics were common and everything was based on gold bars in a vault somewhere. Simpler times, for sure. In its creation, the main goals were improving, "financial plumbing" and to keep money elastic when a credit crunch occurred. The Fed continues to "plumb" our financial system, clearing checks, distributing bills, etc.

But today, the Fed's main sphere of influence is a little known provision that none of the bills authors could have envisioned being so important, setting interest rates. This doesn't even seem remotely considered at the time. It just goes to show how our country evolves

Sounds like propaganda.

 

[HenryWallace]

I am reading "America's Bank, The epic Struggle to create the Fed" by Roger Lowenstein. I really appreciate the book's explanation of technical banking concepts and references to modern day parallels throughout. The long and winding road of the legislation is a great tale for history buffs in itself. But the more interesting thing to me is seeing how far we have come from the authors' intent

One thing is clear, the Fed has never been well understood by the American people, and this continues to this day. I often see Facebook posts about how Trump is going to close the Fed, etc. People don't realize what it is, who they are, or the extremely necessary functions of the "bankers bank".

It was born of a time when banking panics were common and everything was based on gold bars in a vault somewhere. Simpler times, for sure. In its creation, the main goals were improving, "financial plumbing" and to keep money elastic when a credit crunch occurred. The Fed continues to "plumb" our financial system, clearing checks, distributing bills, etc.

But today, the Fed's main sphere of influence is a little known provision that none of the bills authors could have envisioned being so important, setting interest rates. This doesn't even seem remotely considered at the time. It just goes to show how our country evolves

Sounds like propaganda.

Do go on

 

[Picaro]

I am reading "America's Bank, The epic Struggle to create the Fed" by Roger Lowenstein. I really appreciate the book's explanation of technical banking concepts and references to modern day parallels throughout. The long and winding road of the legislation is a great tale for history buffs in itself. But the more interesting thing to me is seeing how far we have come from the authors' intent

One thing is clear, the Fed has never been well understood by the American people, and this continues to this day. I often see Facebook posts about how Trump is going to close the Fed, etc. People don't realize what it is, who they are, or the extremely necessary functions of the "bankers bank".

It was born of a time when banking panics were common and everything was based on gold bars in a vault somewhere. Simpler times, for sure. In its creation, the main goals were improving, "financial plumbing" and to keep money elastic when a credit crunch occurred. The Fed continues to "plumb" our financial system, clearing checks, distributing bills, etc.

But today, the Fed's main sphere of influence is a little known provision that none of the bills authors could have envisioned being so important, setting interest rates. This doesn't even seem remotely considered at the time. It just goes to show how our country evolves

Lowenstein is a good journalist and writer. The Fed was a necessity; our currency system was a nightmare from the beginning, and seriously retarded our country's development for its first 100 hundred years, leaving us largely dependent on foreign investors in the more stable European countries with developed banking and currencies, England mainly, of course. Europeans ended up with major blocks of our public and private bonds and stocks, and provided most of the actual cash in our early years. As late as the early 1900's businessmen had to buy a book with pictures of the various bank notes circulating in order to identify rampant counterfeit notes, not to mention the chronic bank failures even in 'good times' wiping out people and businesses. I think you can find scans of some of them on google books and archive.org, at least they used to have copies of them. A strong Reserve bank provided some real security four savings and a reliable currency outlet for the Treasury dept.

Like anything else, the Fed's power can be easily abused by political hacks, but that is a separate issue from the real need for one. Nobody will do away with medical care or hospitals just because some are corrupt, after all.

 

[Picaro]

Ton of conspiracy theories out there over the federal reserve.

Most are nonsense, a few have a grain of truth with a whole lot of bullshit piled on top.

 

[HenryWallace]

Back to the gold standard.

I wonder what that would look like today. Banks need "Tier 1 Capital" today, but what if they needed a certain amount of gold in order to use leverage?

Would there be a Goldman Sachs Gold Mine subsidiary needed to fuel levered investments?

 

[Preacher]

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

The FR was invented to control Americas money. Just like EVERY nation without a Rothschild owned central bank has been attacked,overthrown or/and invaded by the mighty USA. There are only a few nations left without one. Iran,Cuba,North Korea and I believe Syria. In 2000 Sudan,Libya,Afghanistan and Iraq were on that list.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I am reading "America's Bank, The epic Struggle to create the Fed" by Roger Lowenstein. I really appreciate the book's explanation of technical banking concepts and references to modern day parallels throughout. The long and winding road of the legislation is a great tale for history buffs in itself. But the more interesting thing to me is seeing how far we have come from the authors' intent

One thing is clear, the Fed has never been well understood by the American people, and this continues to this day. I often see Facebook posts about how Trump is going to close the Fed, etc. People don't realize what it is, who they are, or the extremely necessary functions of the "bankers bank".

It was born of a time when banking panics were common and everything was based on gold bars in a vault somewhere. Simpler times, for sure. In its creation, the main goals were improving, "financial plumbing" and to keep money elastic when a credit crunch occurred. The Fed continues to "plumb" our financial system, clearing checks, distributing bills, etc.

But today, the Fed's main sphere of influence is a little known provision that none of the bills authors could have envisioned being so important, setting interest rates. This doesn't even seem remotely considered at the time. It just goes to show how our country evolves

It was born of a time when banking panics were common because the government constantly tried to defy reality and inflate (read: debase) the currency beyond what was sustainable under the gold standard.