Richard Belzer on Federal Reserve: "It's The Banks, Stupid!"

[Hissyspit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-belzer/its-the-banks-stupid_b_74899.html

Richard Belzer| BIO
It's the Banks, Stupid!
Posted November 30, 2007 | 06:35 PM (EST)

Let's all face it (once and for all!): We Americans have been bamboozled; deceived; denied; defaulted; robbed; repossessed; dispossessed and all the rest!

Once upon a time -- 1910 to be exact -- Rockefeller and Morgan banking representatives, along with government officials, boarded a luxurious railcar owned by Nelson Aldrich, Senator from Rhode Island, who became quite wealthy representing the interests of the moneyed class. They were journeying from New Jersey to Jekyll Island, Georgia for a secret conference at which "the Federal Reserve was conceived; the birth of a banking cartel to protect its members from competition; the strategy of how to convince Congress and the public that this cartel was an agency of the United States government." The Creature from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin is a chilling and brilliant analysis of the vast implications of this cabal.

Since then bankers have somehow convinced everyone that any bailouts the banks ever need would be covered by the taxpayers! Hence, among others:

The Savings and Loan industry's bailout by us is easily, technically, the greatest bank heist in all of history! The only problem was that the bankers were doing the heisting! Today, as the monster of sly lending practices looms and lurches and grows, hundreds of millions of dollars are being plundered by the unmasked banker bandits who are whistling all the way FROM the bank!

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[Cha]

1. It's so ironic how Richard

Belzer is looking out for us and fred thompson is a MasterScrewer of the People.

I know I've heard some pretty snarky lines on L&O aimed at fascists.

[mduffy31]

11. Go back even further when he was on Homicide

He was throwing those out even then.

[AX10]

2. As a former defender of the Reserve, I don't like it anymore.

It is clearly a tool of the elites. That is why Bernanke is dropping rates. The rate drop will ultimately help the banks but will lead to the further devaluation of the dollar.

[Selatius]

3. Those rates would've remained the same if those banks weren't in trouble.

I was arguing with several acquaintances who study economics that the Fed should keep interest rates the same because of inflation provoked by oil prices. The last thing the Fed should be doing is making credit easier to obtain, which stokes inflation as more money circulates beyond what is needed to facilitate the operation of the markets.

Those fucking bank boys were so damn short-sighted that they were pushing loans on people who can't afford them in order to push up earnings for the quarter. They didn't give a shit about two or three quarters down the road when the teaser rates end and the rates jack up sky high.

When the Fed started cutting rates and infusing tens of billions of dollars into capital markets, they threw American workers under the bus by condemning them to even higher rates of inflation. They should be fucking ashamed. They have no goddamn idea how bad it is out there.

[AX10]

4. Exactly!

The rates should be closer to 6%, not 4.5% moving towards 4%. it is absurd.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

8. Absurd? Depends on what they're trying to accomplish...

... this is the template I think the Ruling Class is using:

http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/germany-1933.htm

[nightrider767]

14. Come on,,, You don't think they're really short-sighted!

I think you're way too kind.

People like that know the score and serve their masters.

There is no mistake or shortness of sight.

[whoneedstickets]

5. And Monetarist Economics is the ideology of the same...

..the fed is simply the most useful (seemingly independent and respectable) tool to achieve the goals of the capital class.

[Zorra]

6. I have as little to do with financial institutions as possible. I don't have

a bank account and only use banks when I am forced to by someone that wrote me a check.

Banking in the 21st century takes fascism to a whole new level.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

7. K & R. Nice to see the mention of the fact that...

...JFK had intended to do something about this. He would never get the chance, however, they made sure of that.

Here's a good presentation on the Fed:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=iYZM58dulPE


Here's another good one called Money as Debt:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18205.htm

[Hissyspit]

9. Kick

[Blackhatjack]

10. Some Fun Gold Facts from "Don't Open This Book" at Barnes & Noble Tonight...

1/4 of the World's Gold is stored in a vault 80 feet below the surface of the Federal Reserve Bank in NYC.

It takes eight(8) different people to successively enter a codes only known to them to open the vault.

Gold is stored in different depository boxes which do not carry any names of the countries who own them. All boxes are identified only by number, and the identification of the number to a particular country is secret.

Most gold sales and purchases by countries are executed with gold which never leaves the inside of the vault, which is 'shifted' from one part of the vault to another to complete the sales/purchase transaction.

People used to store their gold with banks until they came back to demand its return. Banks began issuing notes to people acknowledging how much gold they had on deposit with them, and the notes were a unconditional promise to pay the gold on demand. As gold is heavy and unwieldy people began to trade the notes for goods, rather than pay with gold. Thus the 'banknote' came into being.

Banks began to issue more notes than they had on deposit(they could not produce enough gold to cover all demands upon them for gold) so Central Banks were created to hold large deposits of gold to back up demands for gold that regular banks could not 'cover.' The Bank of England and The Federal Reserve Bank are Central Banks.

Observation: The way gold is moved around inside the vault and ownership is determined by what part of the vault it rests upon reminds me of the game Monopoly.

[wildbilln864]

12. Thank you Richard Belzer!

The Fed is unconstitutional! And it should be abolished!
The late great patriot Aaron Russo made a movie about this truth. Every American should watch it IMO. Here's the link:
video

:banghead:

[wildbilln864]

13. The Fed prints money out of thin air....

yet the Constitution says that only congress can print money. If the Congress did their constitutional duty and printed the money instead of the Fed then there would be no national debt. The government borrows the money from the Fed at interest. That is the debt most are unwittingly subject to. When Congress printed the money before 1913, there was no national debt. There was no need for the IRS which was created to balance inflation. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1784147019818189259&q=the+truth+behind+the+income+tax&total=22&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0">video link

:banghead:

[girl gone mad]

15. I love that book..

the Creature from Jekyll Island. I think it's fascinating that monetary policy could actually influence this election. Ron Paul owes much of his support to the backlash against the Fed's foolish actions of late.

[pnorman]

16. Here's one of the experts cited in that video:

Hans-Hermann Hoppe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Hermann_Hoppe Here's one of his books: "Democracy,The God That Failed": http://tinyurl.com/2lxo8u

Handle the doctrines of these ("Right") Libertarians with extreme caution. Or you might end up buying into beliefs directly contrary to the spirit of DU. In addition to being hostile to labor unions, much of those doctrines formed the core of some of the more virulent anti-Semitic groups of the previous century.

pnorman
On edit: I had inadvertently posted this in response to the original article. But it was actually intended to be a response to the video in posing #7. Sorry!

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

18. Yes, I agree that your warning is valid ...

...it is not far fetched to think that some who present about our flawed/crooked U.S. monetary system may have hidden agendas, some of which may be rooted in very undemocratic and even racist thinking.

[wildbilln864]

17. and a kick! n/t

[EVDebs]

19. The Creature from Jekyll Island

Great book title ! The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, at least until a capitalist catastrophic event (as Naomi Klein points out when having a progressive agenda ready and waiting) allows for a change.

Rightwingnut's ideas were always there when the catastrophy occurred. It's time for progressive ideas to take preeminence after having gone from neocon fiasco to fiasco.

[leftist_not_liberal]

20. We could pay no taxes and have a welfare state that thrills commies like me

if the congress printed the currency and worked the evil magic of hypothecation and concatenation instead of leaving it to the Real Government, the oligarchy in the shadows.

[wildbilln864]

21. Indeed. n/t

[jpgray]

22. I need to read up more on economics

I can't make heads or tails of the causes and effects of a lot of economic policy, as there is so much competing scholarship out there. Which is biased? If Randbot Greenspan likes it, can I safely throw it out as selfish and greedy? I can't say for sure, but I can guess.