[kj] Killing joke and Communism

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

Yeah, I have watched that documentary, From Freedom to Fascism, which is 
a right-libertarian wet dream. It basically says the Fed is an arch-evil 
agency -- much like the UN's black helicopters to right wing militia 
nuts in the 1990s -- that is illegal and un-Constitutional and is 
reviled by a lot of "I just hate paying taxes"-type Libertarians for the 
wrong reasons.

In actuality, the Fed head is appointed by the President, if I remember 
right, and it acts a lender of last resort to US banks, created to 
ensure the Great Depression never happens again and that banks ever run 
out of money if there is a big run on banks like there was before the 
Great Depression. It is basically a welfare-state creation for banks, 
who are the lifesblood of our economic system. It won't allow banks to 
fail to such a degree that confidence in US markets is lost and 
everything collapses. A nanny state for the business sector.

The Fed also has an unsavory policy of wanting to keep unemployment 
between 4% and 8% -- which translates to real misery for milliosn of 
people, by raising interest rates when unemployment gets too low. When 
unemployment gets too low, the theory goes, workers demand higher wages, 
and, to keep their cushy salaries and other big perks, executives will 
charge consumers more to make up for that. That means higher consumer 
prices, which means workers will want more wages -- so up goes inflation.

One thing the Federal Reserve is NOT is some evil conspiratorial cabal 
of financial elites with ties to the Illuminati, or to Jewish 
moneylenders, or any of the other thinly-veiled anti-Semitic crap that 
has been peddled in some UFO/conspiracy type circles. If you ever see an 
article on the web about the Fed Reserve that mentions "the Rothschilds" 
or "medieval Jewish financial bankers," skip it. It's bullshit.

It is, however, a kind of safety net for the banking industry, but it 
has a policy of keep 4 to 8% of America's population unemployed at any 
given time, so that workers will be more likely to accept less wages.

-Oliver



Brendan wrote:

> Who owns the Federal Reserve...do a search for that on Google and tell me

> what you believe...lots of conspiracy theories on that one...I'm not sure

> what to believe...some people contend that it's a private corporation, or

> mega-corporation, owned by the banks and banking houses...

>

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America:_Freedom_to_Fascism

>

> "The central thesis of the film may be that this monetary policy is the

> strongest form of governance that has ever existed, and is central to the

> unconstitutional, global power ambitions of the interests that supposedly

> control the Federal Reserve."

>

>

> \

>

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