Janet Yellen, has stated that she will continue Ben Bernanke’s current monetary policy of reducing the money supply if either inflation rises above 1.5% annually or unemployment falls below 6%. What is the problem with this? There are many.
Holding the line on inflation is necessary but 1.5% is too low. Some inflation is necessary for the economy to function. Too little and deflation will cause an economic collapse. In addition, keeping the money supply low enough to keep the inflation rate below 1.5% guarantees stagnation. 3% to provided the Swiss with the worlds most stable economy for many decades.
By keeping the unemployment rate above 6%, the Federal Reserve system (which isn’t federal at all, it’s a group of mega-greedy banks) is keeping the supply of labor higher than demand, which keeps wages low while keeping corporate profits high. These are big corporate interests running the show, and not elected representatives, it’s not surprising that policies of the Federal Reserve Board are geared towards their own self-interests and not the well-being of our nation. Even if it were elected representatives running the show and not the Federal Reserve Board, you’ve still got the problem that the majority of elected representatives in this country are for all practical purposes owned by large corporate interests.
Every US President who has spoken out for the need of a national currency controlled by elected representatives and the abolishment of the Federal Reserve has been shot and killed, with the exception of Ronald Reagan who was shot, but not killed. Iceland recently threw out their entire government and re-wrote their constitution to deal with this problem, and that might be practical when you have a population of 300,000 but not so much with a nation the size of the US.
What can we do? Well for starters, stop voting for the name you hear the most and start making an effort to know your representative, how they vote, and what they’ve done in the past. Right now there is an almost absolute correlation between who gets the most campaign contributions, and thus who gets their name out in front of us the most, and who gets elected. We have to break that.
To the degree that we can trade, barter, volunteer, use alternate currencies like BitCoin, it gives the Fed just that much less control over the economy, and by extension, power. To the degree we have to have to use the dollar, use as much of it with real people running real businesses and as little as possible with mega-corporations that do not have our best interests at heart.
I think we also ought to demand honesty. Since the Federal Reserve is not a government entity, they shouldn’t have a website under .gov but rather .com since they are a private entity geared towards making money (and world domination).