In “Panama is Small Change,” SLL asserted that: “The Fed has developed a close identity of interest with the banks it regulates (also known as regulatory capture), promoting concentration within the industry and effectively turning it into a cartel.” For anyone who doubts it, here’s confirmation from a former Fed insider, with commentary by Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:
With every passing day, the Fed is slowly but surely losing the game.
Only it is not just former (and in some cases current) Fed presidents admitting central banks are increasingly powerless to boost the global economy, even if they still have sway over capital markets. What is far more insidious to the Fed’s waning credibility is when former economists affiliated with the Fed start repeating mantras that until recently were only a prominent feature in the so-called fringe media.
This is precisely what happened today when former central bank staffer and Dartmouth College economics professor Andrew Levin, special adviser to then Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke between 2010 to 2012, joined with an activist group to argue for overhauls at the central bank that they say would distance it from Wall Street and make its activities more transparent and accountable to the public.
Levin is pressing for the overhaul with Fed Up coalition activists. Many of the proposed changes target the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks, which are quasi-private and technically owned by commercial banks in their respective districts.
All of that is not surprising. What he said to justify his new found cause, however, is.
“A lot of people would be stunned to know” the extent to which the Federal Reserve is privately owned, Mr. Levin said. The Fed “should be a fully public institution just like every other central bank” in the developed world, he said in a conference call announcing the plan. He described his proposals as “sensible, pragmatic and nonpartisan.”
Why is that stunning? Because it has long been a bone of contention if only among the fringe media, that at its core the Fed is merely a private institution, beholden only to its de facto owners: not the people of the U.S. but to a small cabal of banks. Worse, the actual org chart of who owns what is not disclosed, even as the vast majority of the U.S. population remains deluded that the Fed is a publicly owned institution.
As the WSJ goes on to note, the former central bank staffer said he sees his ideas as designed to maintain the virtues the central bank already brings to the table. They aren’t targeted at changing how policy is conducted today. “What’s important here is that reform to the Federal Reserve can last for 100 years, not just the near term,” he said.
And this is coming from a former Fed employee and Ben Bernanke’s personal advisor! That in itself is a most striking development, because now that the insiders are finally speaking up, it will be a race among both current and prior Fed workers to reveal as much dirty laundry as possible ahead of what is increasingly being perceived by many as the Fed’s demise.
To continue reading: Bernanke’s Former Advisor: “People Would Be Stunned To Know The Extent To Which The Fed Is Privately Owned”
The only good Fed is a DEAD Fed with no possibility of reincarnation in any form.
I couldn’t agree with you more, sir. SLL has long advocated purely private money, with no role for the government at all, and no central bank at all. This article obviously takes the position that the Fed can somehow be “fixed.” I think the whole idea of central banking is fundamentally flawed. I posted this article to show the incestuous relationship between the Fed and the bank cartel, and do not agree that the Fed can somehow be “reformed.”
You are sooooo correct Bob. Should the Fed become “publicly owned,” thereby no longer engaging in the process of debt creation prior to creation of the means to do so, its new “boss” will become the Secretary of the Treasury. In that eventuality, Zimbabwe’s esteemed Gideon Gono will subsequently be proven to have been but an amateur wanna-be……………….