Posted on 03/30/2008 1:52:39 PM PDT by moderatewolverine
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's proposed sweep of financial regulation would emphasize more control at the federal level, at the expense of state oversight, and consolidate an alphabet soup of existing agencies.
It is an idea that has been kicking around for a while, and one that is bound to provoke heated debate on Capitol Hill and among the various banking and market oversight agencies, which are already tripping over each others' turf. It is also bound to please some circles of Wall Street because the plan, while strengthening the Federal Reserve's role over certain aspects of the markets, like risk taking, would also emphasize greater self-regulation over other aspects, including business conduct.
(Excerpt) Read more at primetimepolitics.com ...
Well, if the Republicans don’t do it, the Dems will do it for them. More Federal control, less State and personal rights.
Man, we are going to be the Soviet Union before long.
I think a knee jerk reaction is unwise.
</sarc>
These firms almost brought down and may still bring down our financial system. Because they took excessive risk and lost, the taxpayers are on the hook and will pay many tens of billions of $ before this mess is cleaned up.
The goal should be oversight without stifling innovation.
.
World's newest and biggest 'black market' - Derivatives the new 'ticking bomb'
"The fact is, derivatives have become the world's biggest "black market," exceeding the illicit traffic in stuff like arms, drugs, alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, stolen art and pirated movies.
Why? Because like all black markets, derivatives are a perfect way of getting rich while avoiding taxes and government regulations. And in today's slowdown, plus a volatile global market, Wall Street knows derivatives remain a lucrative business."
Because like all black markets, derivatives are a perfect way of getting rich while avoiding taxes and government regulations. And in today's slowdown, plus a volatile global market, Wall Street knows derivatives remain a lucrative business."
Especially when you have Tyson or The Fed ready to bail you out in case of losses.
There are some really good ideas in Secretary Paulson’s plan.
Giving more power........to the Federal Reserve? which should be abolished? I think this is a grave mistake.
4:42 min. Video:
G. Edward Griffin on the Federal Reserve SystemThe author of The Creature From Jekyll Island, G. Edward Griffin, on the cartel structure of the Federal Reserve System and the 1910 "money trust" meeting on Jekyll Island responsible for drafting the principles of the Owners-Glass Bill/Federal Reserve Act signed into law by President Wilson. Clip from the film "FIAT EMPIRE - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution."
From the video: "The Federal Reserve is a partnership between the federal government and the private banks....in reality it is a cartel....It's no different than a banana cartel.....to limit competition and preserve their profits....that's what cartels are always designed to do....It was not formed in Washington D.C....but on a private island called Jekyll Island...formed by a relatively small group of billionaires...like J P Morgan and Rockefeller..."
42 min. Video:
Money, Banking and the Federal ReserveThomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson understood "The Monster". But to most Americans today, Federal Reserve is just a name on the dollar bill. They have no idea of what the central bank does to the economy, or to their own economic lives; of how and why it was founded and operates; or of the sound money and banking that could end the statism, inflation, and business cycles that the Fed generates.
Dedicated to Murray N. Rothbard, steeped in American history and Austrian economics, and featuring Ron Paul, Joseph Salerno, Hans Hoppe, and Lew Rockwell, this extraordinary new film is the clearest, most compelling explanation ever offered of the Fed, and why curbing it must be our first priority.
Alan Greenspan is not, we're told, happy about this 42-minute blockbuster. Watch it, and you'll understand why.
From this forum: http://www.topix.com/forum/nyc/T2K3OCSBMA68CGK4E
Two posters' comments:
1) On June 4, 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest.* * *With the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy declared that the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business. The Christian Law Fellowship has exhaustively researched this matter through the Federal Register and Library of Congress. We can now safely conclude that this Executive Order has never been repealed, amended, or superceded by any subsequent Executive Order. In simple terms, it is still valid.
When President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - the author of Profiles in Courage -signed this Order, it returned to the federal government, specifically the Treasury Department, the Constitutional power to create and issue currency -money - without going through the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110 [the full text is displayed further below] gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority:
"to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury."This means that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation based on the silver bullion physically held there. As a result, more than $4 billion in United States Notes were brought into circulation in $2 and $5 denominations. $10 and $20 United States Notes were never circulated but were being printed by the Treasury Department when Kennedy was assassinated.It appears obvious that President Kennedy knew the Federal Reserve Notes being used as the purported legal currency were contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America.
"United States Notes" were issued as an interest-free and debt-free currency backed by silver reserves in the U.S. Treasury. We compared a "Federal Reserve Note" issued from the private central bank of the United States (the Federal Reserve Bank a/k/a Federal Reserve System), with a "United States Note" from the U.S. Treasury issued by President Kennedy's Executive Order. They almost look alike, except one says "Federal Reserve Note" on the top while the other says "United States Note". Also, the Federal Reserve Note has a green seal and serial number while the United States Note has a red seal and serial number.
President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and the United States Notes he had issued were immediately taken out of circulation. Federal Reserve Notes continued to serve as the legal currency of the nation. According to the United States Secret Service, 99% of all U.S. paper "currency" circulating in 1999 are Federal Reserve Notes.
Kennedy knew that if the silver-backed United States Notes were widely circulated, they would have eliminated the demand for Federal Reserve Notes. This is a very simple matter of economics. The USN was backed by silver and the FRN was not backed by anything of intrinsic value. Executive Order 11110 should have prevented the national debt from reaching its current level (virtually all of the nearly $9 trillion in federal debt has been created since 1963) if LBJ or any subsequent President were to enforce it. It would have almost immediately given the U.S. Government the ability to repay its debt without going to the private Federal Reserve Banks and being charged interest to create new "money". Executive Order 11110 gave the U.S.A. the ability to, once again, create its own money backed by silver and realm value worth something.
2) Now comes word that George W. Bush seeks to expand the powers of the Federal Reserve by giving it "new" authority to oversee the stability of U.S. financial markets. Three overseers (who might they be)? would have the power to regulate the present regulators as well as impose a national regulator for insurance industries. The plan, however, actually avoid tighter regulations. "SWAT" teams would be dispersed to any institution or industry that poses a "risk." What is Congress' role in any of this or have they no role? This proposal is raising many red flags and many unanswered questions for me as it should for all Americans.
The Federal Reserve Bank.
It is NOT part of the Federal government.
It is NOT a bank.
There is NO RESERVE $$$$$$$$$$$
Pat Paulson was my FIRST thought too! Too bad he isn’t running for President this time. The late Pat Paulson sure made it more FUN. God rest his merry soul. May he RIP.
I have that book THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND! EVERYONE should read it! It starts out like a sinister spy novel.
That was the start of the FED...and the story hasn't played out yet. Remember BAILOUT is the name of the game.
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986212
G. Edward Griffin is to be commended for this splendid work. At first glance The Creature from Jekyll Island is a huge book. While this may be daunting to some, once the book is actually started, it flows smoothly and reads quickly. There are so many fascinating tidbits of information here that the reader won’t even be concerned about the size of the book. The title refers to the formation of the Federal Reserve System, which occurred at a secret meeting at Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1910. It was at this meeting, as Griffin relates, that the “Money Trust”, composed of the richest and most powerful bankers in the world, along with a U.S. Senator, wrote the proposal to launch the Federal Reserve System (which Griffin calls a banking cartel) to control the financial system so that the bankers will always come out on top.
While Griffin starts with this event, he quickly moves into the present day to detail several financial crises that resulted in a quick government intervention at the behest of the bankers from the Fed, who told all who would listen that if the government (read: taxpayers) didn’t bail out the banks that had made bad loans, it could cause the entire system to collapse. Massive loan defaults; bank runs, and a major economic depression would manifest this collapse. Griffin shows how time and time again the taxpayer is bilked so that bankers can make billions in profits off of these financial scares. Griffin also shows how the supposed safeguards against these woes, such as the FSLIC, are scams to reassure the average person that their banks are safe. In actuality, these insurances against bank closures are so inadequate that there isn’t enough money to even come close to paying off investors in case of a collapse.
The biggest problem in modern banking, according to Griffin, is and has always been the creation of fiat money. Fiat money is money that is “declared” money by the government. It is not backed by anything but promises and deceit. All societies were sound financially when they used gold or silver to back their currency. When the bankers finally get their way and install fiat money, the result is inflation and boom and bust cycles. Griffin gives numerous examples of this, such as repeated failures by American colonies and European states in using fiat money. The purpose of fiat money is so that the government can spend more then they take in through taxes.
Without writing reams on this book, it is sufficient to say that this is a must read for anyone who is interested in learning how the money system operates. Griffin gives comprehensive accounts of how the Fed creates money, and how this affects everyday life. I would have to say these sections are better than Murray Rothbard’s book, The Case Against the Fed, because Griffin gives himself more room for explanation.
Griffin does believe in the conspiratorial view of history, and he believes that the bankers are working in concert with such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission to bring about a socialist-world system in which an elite composed of intellectuals and bankers will rule over the entire planet. Griffin even spends a chapter outlining how this system could come about, and the consequent results of this socialist system. These chapters are a bit unsettling, but even if you aren’t interested in this worldview, you can still learn much about the economy from this book.
another review from amazon....
What is The Creature From Jekyll Island? Well, first of all, it’s uglier than The Creature from the Black Lagoon; it’s more densely wrapped in deception than the Mummy is in cloth; it sucks the lifeblood of America more ravenously than Dracula does his victims; it reeks worse than the Werewolf; and it’s stronger and more dangerous than Doctor Frankenstein’s miscreation!
The Creature from Jekyll Island is the PRIVATE Federal Reserve that holds America and Her People hostage with an astoundingly perverse and “criminal” economic system that is an evil beyond your worst monster-infested nightmare. But the Creature comes in a guise to mislead the people, like a Wolfman in sheep’s clothing.
Why is the system “criminal”? Because the U.S. Constitution proclaims itself to be the “supreme Law of the Land” (see Article VI), and Article I, Section VIII of the Constitution states that “The Congress shall (Constitutionally speaking, “shall” has been legally defined as “must”)...coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.” Why Congress? Because it is answerable to the People it represents! Remember, our Constitutional Republic was meant to be representational government! We’re a long way from that now! The Federal Reserve is NOT Congress; it is unelected, meaning nonrepresentational, and being therefore unconstitutional, it is illegal, hence “criminal.”
I first read G. Edwrd Griffin’s magnificent study, ‘The Creature From Jekyll Island’ eight years ago. I had read plenty of political books prior to this one, and countless since, but Mr. Griffin’s tour de force has yet to be equaled when it comes to educating the reader in wide-ranging topics that coalesce most of the geopolitical mysteries of our time into the diabolical scheme known as the Federal Reserve System.
Don’t make the mistake of letting the sophisticated subject matter drive you away as forcefully as the intriguing title beckons you. Despite the complexity of the topic, G. Edward Griffin masterfully organizes the material and lays it out, not only in a very readable manner, but he actually fashions a carefully researched, extensively footnoted nonfiction tome into a spellbinding journey that reads nearly like a page-turning mystery novel.
In the process of explaining and demystifying the history, the stated goals of the Federal Reserve, and the real agenda behind it, Mr. Griffin necessarily enlightens the reader about myriad conspirators who occupy positions in a variety of social engineering organizations. Without this understanding, one could not possibly grasp the full scope of the problem, nor fathom how such a demonstrably evil entity could have remained cloaked and in power since 1913. (Indeed the thirteenth year of the Twentieth Century represented an unlucky number for America and eventually the world.)
You will find some reviewers here complaining that Mr. Griffin has unfortunately polluted his 600+ page study with John Birch Society style conspiracy theories. What you WON’T find is where any of those same reviewers have proven any errors in fact committed by Mr. Griffin. They challenge the idea of a conspiracy, but not any of the abundant and overt evidence that clearly points to it. I myself don’t like little yapping dogs, but I’m not prepared to say that they don’t exist simply because I’d prefer not to even think about them. And I can hear those yapping quadrupeds as clearly as I can see the indisputable evidence of underhanded collusion in high and influential places when it comes to this country’s monetary system.
“You are a den of vipers!” President Andrew Jackson thundered at a delegation of supporters of the central Bank of the United States in 1834. “I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God I will rout you out!” Jackson succeeded in ridding this country of the inherent perniciousness that a central bank levels on a nation. But President Jackson’s hard-earned victory for his countrymen was sadly overturned in 1913, when a corrupt privately owned central bank was again foisted on the sleeping people of this once free nation in the form of The Federal Reserve cartel. As Griffin states on page 573, “The Federal Reserve is the world’s largest and most successful scam.”
I will tell you plainly that regardless of what you think you know about the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, civil rights and corporate greed, socialism and capitalism — regardless of how well informed you may think you are by reading mainstream news magazines and newspapers, listening to NPR and talk radio programs and watching political debates on nightly news TV shows — until you have read and digested G. Edward Griffin’s, ‘THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND’, you will never really understand contemporary American and global politics. But afterwards, the political puzzle will come together before your eyes, and never again will you follow the red herring into the brainwashing house of mirrors which is our current political milieu.
If you’re inclined to read only one political book, be sure it’s this one, as it will make sense of your world like nothing else. ‘THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND’ belongs in the personal library of every American who truly cares about his or her country (regardless of political party affiliation); by rousing the people of this nation from the ignorance of deep sleep, it has the potential to be the silver bullet or the stake through the heart of America’s worst monster! Read it now or the Wolfman’s gonna getcha!
Now maybe you see why its important to read “Jekyll Island” yourself....
Most public library’s have it
I agree. There is only one party responsible for the mortgage crisis and one person most responsible and the new Fed chairman is following right in his footsteps. The Fox is already running the henhouse, overbreeding and handing out a couple of chicken for every pot. Now that the pots are overflowing, with dead chickens and chicken guts everywhere, we now propose having the Fox guard the henhouse like it's the most important issue on the planet.
$47T (and rising) against a GDP of $14T (and probably dropping). As of last year, $6 in new debt for every $1 in new GDP. The credit is the problem, and stamping out fraud in one part of the credit market (e.g. the fraudulently rated MBS) will just move it to another.
I’ll be getting the book....and will read it, by end of summer. : )
Agree completely with your post. This is more than ridiculous...and because I don’t think the reasons behind it are for any good....there’s likely more sinister reasons why it’s being done.
Thanks for your post.
http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/market-plunges-fed-acts/
Market Plunges, Fed Acts
When Wall Street wanted the Fed to ignore all the wild gambling in the derivatives markets, the Fed did so. Alan Greenspan fought to keep regulation away from that market, and argued that it was assuring the safety of financial institutions by allowing risk to be transferred to others. It turns out the exact opposite was true..........
........Consider this report from Britain’s Financial Services Authority, dealing with the Northern Rock debacle. It discloses an internal audit at the F.S.A. that found, among other things, “a lack of adequate oversight and review by FSA line management of the quality, intensity and rigor of the firm’s supervision.”
I’ve seen nothing similar from the Fed. Meanwhile, the Treasury proposes to give the Fed authority to oversee the entire financial system, but wants to do nothing to restrain what it views as wonderful innovation in financial products.
Let’s see if we get this straight: The crisis erupted in unregulated markets, the ones with all that innovation. Regulated markets, with more transparency and limits on the leverage market participants can use, have held up while unregulated ones crumbled. Therefore, the solution is to reduce regulation of regulated markets, while doing nothing to restrain the unregulated ones.
[excerpt; recommend reading full article]
April Fools: The Fox To Guard The Banking Henhouse
By Dr. Ellen Brown
Global Research, March 31, 2008
[author’s website at www.webofdebt.com]
The Federal Reserve, which has been credited with creating the current housing bubble and bust just as it created the credit bubble of the Roaring Twenties and the bust of 1929, is now to be given vast new powers to oversee regulation of the banking industry and promote “financial market stability.” At least, that is the gist of a Treasury Department proposal to be presented to Congress on Monday, March 31, 2008. Adrian Douglas wrote on LeMetropoleCafe.com, “I would like to think that this is some sort of sick April Fools joke, but, alas, they are serious! What happened to free markets?”
1 In fact, what happened to regulating the banks? The Treasury’s plan is not for the private Federal Reserve to increase regulation of the banking system it heads. Au contraire, regulation will actually be decreased. According to The Wall Street Journal:
“Many of the [Treasury’s] proposals, like those that would consolidate regulatory agencies, have nothing to do with the turmoil in financial markets. And some of the proposals could actually reduce regulation. According to a summary provided by the administration, the plan would consolidate an alphabet soup of banking and securities regulators into a powerful trio of overseers responsible for everything from banks and brokerage firms to hedge funds and private equity firms. . . . Parts of the plan could reduce the power of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is charged with maintaining orderly stock and bond markets and protecting investors. . . . The blueprint also suggests several areas where the S.E.C. should take a lighter approach to its oversight. Among them are allowing stock exchanges greater leeway to regulate themselves and streamlining the approval of new products, even allowing automatic approval of securities products that are being traded in foreign markets.”
2 “securities products” include the mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations, credit default swaps, and other forms of the great Ponzi scheme known as “derivatives” that have been largely responsible for bringing the banking system to the brink of collapse. But these suspect products are not to be more heavily scrutinized.......
You do good work Nic
;-)
lol....just reading stuff...and posting it. : )
The liquidity crisis is developing a feel that the government is really worried we are on the brink of an event like the Great Depression. Between deep concern and panic, you can see they are pulling out all the stops. Who knows where this will end? I hope we can look back on these days and laugh about how overly concerned we were about the potential catastrophic fallout from the crisis and remember it as nothing but a scare. I am hoping and praying that is the case.
I don’t see how the best of hopes can come true. It’s more likely that there will be hard times ahead, of some kind. So, being prepared for that will allow you some ability to deal with it in a better way than having a false optimism and doing nothing to keep yourself from getting burned.
Better to be safe than sorry....
Indeed better safe than sorry.
Hope for the best; prepare for the worst.
And always have a backup plan.
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