The corruption of Wall Street is but a symptom of this unaccountable entity that holds a grip over finance, politics and freedom everywhere.

http://www.infowars.com/targeting-the-real-enemy-occupy-the-fed/

I agree: The Fed must be replaced with a new Federal Banking System that's owned by the American people. In 1919, the Populist movement created the Bank of North Dakota, a publicly owned bank. North Dakota weathered the 2008 banking crisis much better than other states due to the stability provided by their state-owned bank. Besides pushing for a publicly owned Federal Banking System, we should propose publicly owned State Banks. In the early 1900's, farmers, miners, and workers understood the need for publicly owned banks as they felt robbed by the banks of their time. Today, folks who have lost their homes to foreclosure, have credit card debt and student loans would not be hard to convince... they just need some education, a little history.

I can't agree -- The Fed is the one government institution that worked during this economic crisis. It's policies prevented the recession from being far worse. It is the banks that are the problem.

I think everyone here is really leaning to the same thing.... Transparancy...

The FED is closed... no-one really knows enough about what the FED is doing to determine whether or not to abolish it...

We want Complete financial transparency of the FED.

My view is that the Fed was , and is, the center of operations for the whole meltdown of 2008. This system needed to meltdown so in that way I think we have the Fed to thank because it began a process of forced transparency though, nowhere near complete.

The fed needs an audit...I agree as all privately owned central banks that supply currency do. Then they need to be stripped of their assets, assets redistributed, and closed forever while those at the top of their ladder go to jail along with the politicians in collusion with them.

While we're all faced with the ongoing financial system crisis I believe that is a simple effect of the bigger issue being that this is really a complete values system crisis.

It's not about ones political sway, religious views, or any of that sort...

Money has become more valuable than life and we ALL let it happen either by direct participation or by doing nothing about it a long time ago. If we have the power...99%, then we have the power to change it.

I hope we do.

Peace

You cannot create wealth with debt. Every dollar we print is truly less than worthless, even printing it is a tax on society. We live in an electronic society. Goodbye Visa, Mastercard, BOA, and Chase...we won't be needing your services anymore. We can use a credit system based purely on gdp which would be paperless and metal free. Every credit would have value based on actual wealth held by the people. Inflation and deflation are simply distractions and excuses to move wealth away from where it belongs into the hands of the greedy. Black and white...that is how an economy MUST function. Every speck of grey is a disease to society.

I think you make some clear and good arguments for ending the fed, but I think we better focus on accountability and transparency for now. The whole world economy hinges on the promise of printing money from the fed right now. Focus and transparency is needed and now, though. The current path is not sustainable. If they stay on it, your wish will come true, but be careful what you wish for. If they don't come up with some radical solutions, and quit hoarding the money they stole, or are made to give it back, like most fraud cases. Inflation will bring the whole damn thing down. Unless some serious investments are made into the future. Don't worry though, they won't risk any money on that.

The 1%, and fed know this, and keep insisting on instead of capitalism, they're "restructuring" debt. Passing on the illusion that it will be paid back, when after they extracted all the money, anyone has the capital to do it except them, and not caring about the future of anyone else. Till they get scared, by all these things, and take their focus off the crack addicted, short term profits, and remember when the bottom falls out, it effects them too. Unless you control everything and need slave labor. Which I often wonder is not the plan all along. If we end the fed, the 1% still have all the money don't they ? Will we be foolish enough to except this as valid capital is the question, if it does crash, and might be the right one to ask now. That is a very scary road to look down though, Maybe that's why they refuse to look past today, or want any transparency in the fed. The point is they have screwed things up so bad, no one wants to look. That is the only thing transparent to me.

The focus needs to be on the merging of the Fed and Wall Street, to the point that we might as well put a bull in front of the fed too. That's where the bull@#%$ hits the road so to speak, and you would think there are some smart guys, who may have noticed this before now, but what do I know.. I ain't no smart guy. I'm afraid no one is when looking at this mess. Except the ones who created it.

The more you look at it. Once the black market of free gambling money created by them, it's almost like they didn't care how big the housing bubble got. Like they planed it for a long time. I mean how could the greediest business people in the world understand something like cycles and bubbles? Mind boggling stuff I guess, and if they can't see those simple things coming what does it say for this mess ?

So in summary, in terms the smart ones might understand. "Wall Street got a little drunk" That may have been the most concise explanation they have given by these guys, and I guess the way they play it, they are just hiding the fact of how stupid they are. I think we are all smart enough to see through that lie now. I don't know which is worse, to face the fact it was planned, or to think they are all just a bunch of innocent dummies victims of their own creations. It was one or the other. Which do you believe? I guess it's not occupy the Fed for a reason.

K_Man: Thanks for putting the quotes of the founding fathers up which should be 'front and center' knowledge of every American. Now anyone making signs for protest participation will be able to save the time that would be used looking them up!

Signed 99er99percenter (laid off due to 3 real estate and mortgage banker/brokerage company closures in 2001, 2006 and 2008)




Keep asking questions people! Bernanke vs the people




#OWS Protester Nails It! Federal Reserve : Fractional Banking : FIAT Currency : Wars


The Greatest Speech Ever Made (When Will The Human Race Ever 'Get' It?)

I would like to ask all to watch the educational videos "Money as Debt". They explain the issue of fractional banking. Why it does not work and how it can only lead to ruin.
Also keep in mind when you are looking for someone or something to blame that in America the buck stops with each of us. We the people have the voice and the vote so in the end we, each of us are to blame. We allowed these things to happen with our inaction. Lets try to approach each issue and person with and open hand and mind not harsh words and anger.

Yes, I love all people....banks are not people and the FED needs to be abolished. Thomas Jefferson agrees too, calling it the one threat to our nation. This is an article from today about the latest heist illustrating the connection behind the private bank called the federal reserve and our public tax dollars being stolen http://dailybail.com/home/holy-bailout-federal-reserve-now-backstopping-75-trillion-of.html All my love to humanity around the world.

Knock off all the ending drama and lets begin to live.

Land of Opportunity or the Land of Entitlements?

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2009/02/land-of-opportunity-or-land-of.html
http://floydreports.com/whats-really-unprecedented-in-obama-soetoros-america/

Dennis Kucinich describes his NEED Act:


Link to full text of the NEED Act (HR 2990):
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex ... =h112-2990

Every country has a money producing system of some sort, or they will use another country's currency (most often it is the US dollar actually to tell the truth). We have had a system to produce money for the entire history of our country, otherwise we would probably have used the Spanish dollar which was already circulating, which would mean our economy would be with another country's money producing mechanism. If we didn't do a federal system, we would either have local currencies (which would be hard to exchange. Go to a bank and ask for some Colombian pesos, imagine that but worse) for each state, which means every time you cross a state border you would need another currency, like Europe before the EU. Oh, the nightmare! Another option would be to use a foreign currency, which would heavily tie our country to another country's decisions which we would have no impact on. No control over our currency? No thank you. We could do a currency union with our neighbors (most likely Canada), but this would not be popular in the USA. The only remaining option is for a private currency. Rewind 100 years to the coal mines of West Virginia where there were company towns which paid their employees in company script, which was only accepted at the company store. NO FUN! There is a reason we have a Federal money system, because it is the best of all options.

We need to reform it, yes. We need to make it so that corporate interests cannot interfere with the political mechanisms (which being the country with the world's undisputed largest GDP would affect everyone in the world, including the 31 countries the choose to peg their currency to ours or just use ours, and have for many years) and that they are held accountable which would probably have serious benefits for all. But I always must cringe at privatizing or outsourcing the currency of the largest economy in the world. I cannot see any evidence of the government not issuing currency being good for anyone, but those people who do propose ending it (enter Ron Paul, reverend saint of many along with Reagan and Pres. Hoover) probably have some way they are going to benefit, and all of their voting records go against their campaign trail speeches. These people are all from the Austrian school of economic thought which is the philosophy of Alan Greenspan who ran the Federal Reserve from Reagan's administration all the way to 2006. We need to use a monetary system that is Keynesian, and that is what was used from 1933 to 1980, when we saw growth and ended being the undisputed richest nation in the world, not just in terms of money but quality of life. We also need to make sure that it cannot be influenced by corporations for their own personal gain, at the expense of all. Those are the regulations that need to be put in place and safeguarded with the most important protections against corruption of any democracy, the vote and a high-quality education.

The FED is NOT a government institution, they answer to no one. You cant expect audit and reform to make any lasting change as long as private owners control the coining of our money.

The congress should be coining our money, as the constitution states. As many of our leaders also believed, read the quotes in the first post as well as Abe Lincoln and JFK both had measures to end the fed that were thrown out as soon as they were out of the picture.

The FED IS the banks! We need people to educate themselves instead of listening to what the puppets tell them to think!!!

Then, if the Federal Reserve is not a government institution, why is the board of directors appointed by Congress and approved by the President? I agree there is corruption in Congress and across the agencies of the USA, but if it isn't a government institution, why would their website be federalreserve.GOV (gov, as you probably know, meaning government), and the fact is it is an independent agency of the government, like the FDIC, NCUA, Office of Government Ethics, Peace Corps, and USPS which are not under any cabinet department, and report directly to the President. You can find their government audits here: http://federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_12784.htm

Your argument that it is Congress' responsibility so there should not be a federal reserve, well, your logic would mean we should eliminate every single agency of the federal government would mean they couldn't do anything, leaving us in anarchy, like Somalia. If you go through the Constitution you can see the Congress has set up agencies to do all the business that they are instructed to take care of according to Article I, Sec. 8 of the Constitution. None of these are done directly by Congress, they are all done through agencies throughout the government. This is legal under the last part of Article 1, Section 8, "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution of the Government of the United States or in any Department or Officer thereof." In modern English, the Congress is allowed to create agencies to carry out their duties.

Also, I confused the Federal Reserve with the Bureau of Printing and Engraving in my previous posts, which is unusual on the world stage where they are usually in one agency, (I study comparative government) man we have a decentralized government! Most countries do the two functions together, but we're America and we have to be different. Everything the Federal Reserve does is legal according to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The Federal Reserve has the following functions, it distributes money from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving to banks from its 12 districts (look in your wallet and pull out a dollar bill, doesn't matter what size, it will say Federal Reserve Note on the top, if the federal government didn't distribute the money it wouldn't get out into the world), it regulates banking operations (To regulate Commerce... among the several states), to manage the money supply (created by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving and the US Mint, see "to coin money, regulate the value thereof"), Maintains the stability of the financial system by doing what happens after bank runs by shoring up (or replenishing lost money) in banks ("to coin money", "uniform Laws on the subject of bankruptcies"), and manages the funds of the government (which is necessary for other agencies to function). In other words, everything the Federal Reserve does currently is in the Constitution. Look it up.

The second point, regulate banking operations, had some real reasons for creating the Federal Reserve a few years before it was created. Before the Federal Reserve System was created, we had a fiasco in 1907 which was a disaster which lasted a year before our economy recovered, there was no central bank to shore up the bank run, and there had been others during the time period between the time when banks were issuing their own currency that were pegged together (thank God) to the formation of the federal reserve. The market was unstable and there were no less than 3 bank runs in 40 years. (Just imagine, three economic disasters between now and 1971... the horror) The Aldrich-Vreeland Act was passed in 1908 to help banks recover and upon recovery which they did, and rapidly back to where they were before the bank run. We have only had two downturns since then, 1929 under Hoover who followed laissez-faire economic thought, and 2008.

Is there corruption? Absolutely! Are people allowed to put money into the system without regulation, yes, just like any other agency in the government under current laws. This means we need reform for bribery, which will help the entire government. As a side note, if the government did not have an agency to distribute funds to other agencies, who would? Well, it would either be local currencies across the states or it would be a private entity, like the Department of Defense with Blackwater and other corporations burning up most of our government's cash. The government has printed money for most of our country's history since 1789, the beginning of our country. There have been some short periods where we didn't have a central banks, which had the characteristics if you look at our economic history of instability and bank runs.

I do not know who (besides Ron Paul) is circulating all the false misinformation, and I don't know how they specifically will benefit from a decentralized system like we had between the 1860s and 1914, maybe they are the hedge fund lenders like Bernie Madoff who then will be able to rake in the dollars, the whole thing smells like corruption. I have proved in this post what the different functions are and where in the Constitution Congress has the power to manage the different functions of the federal reserve. There is a whole bunch of misinformation floating around on how it functions, I recommend everybody gets their information direct from reliable encyclopedias, and from their website which tells you exactly what they do. I highly recommend some research in how our government functions, no news organization except for PBS and NPR tell the facts about our government, and they usually only tell the parts that are part of the event they are report because they have only so much time. Do it for America. Do it for yourself.

“if the Federal Reserve is not a government institution, why is the board of directors appointed by Congress and approved by the President?”

Congress picks from a list approved by the share holders, The bankers!!! A dance to appease sheeple. Just like getting a .gov address. No matter what mask they wear, it is a privately owned for-profit business that owns the debt of our country. The share holders ARE the bankers and they own our country!

“"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution of the Government of the United States or in any Department or Officer thereof." In modern English, the Congress is allowed to create agencies to carry out their duties.“

I am pretty sure that says that congress has the power to make LAWS to execute the power the constitution gives congress, the government, and other agencies and officers WE CREATED in the constitution.

Nowhere does it say congress has the power create other agencies to do their work for them. that’s the power of the people, and we never agreed on the fed.

If a central banking system is so great why have our forefathers and presidents since warned of the dangers of a central bank, and even removed a couple?

Why is it the problems a central bank is support protect us from have been the worse while under the control of a central bank and traced to a direct result of the central banking practices?

And finally why is it the last time our country has been out of debt and prospering is after the removal of a central bank and ended the same time as the installing of the Federal reserve?

The last time we didn't have a central bank was between the 1870s and 1914. During this 40 year period we had no less than 3 banking panics ending in no less than six recessions that last a year or more each, one in 1873, one in 1884, one in 1893, one in 1896, one in 1901, and one in 1907. Since then we have had two, the one in 1929 and the one in 2008. Six in the 40 years before the fed, with no central bank, two in the 88 years after. The rate of recessions decreasing from one per 6 years to one per 44 years, and the latter is currently increasing. Looks like it has made our economy more prosperous, because our economy is more stable. Also, each of these crises were directly caused by bank mismanagement and an unstable currency.

Again, if you say that the Constitution doesn't give Congress the ability to create agencies than every single part of the Federal Government except for the President, Congress, and Supreme court is illegal. This is not the legal opinion that has been decided on whether you are reading the Federalist Papers or Supreme Court Cases.

Where do you get your information? Here are my sources:
http://books.google.com/books?id=c6QoAAAAYAAJ
http://books.google.com/books?id=G3ijjghNiG4C&dq=isbn:1893122468
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-loerzel/another-banking-crisis-ch_b_133334.html

What are yours? I do not accept Ron Paul as a valid source.

First off I don’t like Ron Paul and have never read any of his writings. So don’t worry

Second I didn’t say the last time we didn’t have a central bank, I said the last time we were out of debt. Around 1836

Between 1870 and 1914 our debt did decrease, thou it didn’t hit zero, and what do you see happen right around 1914?

Third, your data is a little off. Using the data from the NBER, they claim from 1870-1914 there where 11 recessions in the 44 year period totaling 21years 8 months.

And many where associated with other countries taking on central banking systems, like in 1873 “The panic was caused by the fall in demand for silver internationally, which followed Germany's decision to abandon the silver standard.”

From 1914 till present there where 17 recessions, not only 2, in the 84 year period, totaling 19 years and 3 months

So it still seems to support your theory, until you factor federal debt into it.

Between 1870 to 1914 federal debt dropped from about 35%GDP to less than 5%GDP

From 1914 to 1920 it jumped from 5%GDP right back to 35%GDP. From 1920 to present it fluxgates radically, toping out at just over 120%GDP in 1945ish and getting no lower than 18%GDP in 1930 (second lowest is 35%GDP in the 70s and 80s.)

So it seems central banks do ease recessions in exchange for mass debt.

As Thomas Jefferson said "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered”

Debt is the weapon used to deprive the people of all property!

Look at this chart keeping these 4 facts in mind.

1: the first spike you see is around 1812, the war of 1812 and the installation of the second central bank in 1816.

2: Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1828, denounced it as an engine of corruption and ended it in 1836, from 1837-1862 was knows as the “free banking” era. Notice anything?

3: 1863 to 1913 was national banks, starts out bumpy but we started figuring it out, not fast enough I’m afraid

4: again what do you see happen after the start of the FED and fiat money in 1914?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1792_2016USp_13s1li011lcn_H0f

As for where I get my info on the FED being unconstitutional, from the constitution and a dictionary. I don’t look for others to think for me.

And none of this changes the fact that, unlike the other agencies you mentioned, the FED is a privately owned business. Owned by private stock holders, the bankers, and we are in debt to them!

Cross-Posting a link to my thoughts on the N.E.E.D. Act (2011 House Resolution 2990: The National Emergency Employment Defense Act) as it seems very very relevant to this thread, and appears to propose solid & coherent solutions to the issue of what to do about the Federal Reserve Bank System. http://occupytogether.com/forum/discussion/918/the-n.e.e.d.-act-national-emergency-employment-defense-act