Showing posts with label The Federal Reserve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Federal Reserve. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Fiat Money - This is what your money is.. Really..

Fiat Money

What Does It Mean?
What Does Fiat Money Mean?
Currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact that it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves. Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith.
Investopedia Says
Investopedia explains Fiat Money
Most of the world's paper money is fiat money. Because fiat money is not linked to physical reserves, it risks becoming worthless due to hyperinflation. If people lose faith in a nation's paper currency, the money will no longer hold any value.

How Money Is Created
Now that we've discussed why and how money, a representation of perceived value, is created in the economy, we need to touch on how the central bank (the Federal Reserve in the U.S.) can manipulate the money supply.
Among other things, a central bank has the ability to influence the level of a country's money supply . Let's look at a simplified example of how this is done. If it wants to increase the amount of money in circulation, the central bank can, of course, simply print it, but as we learned, the physical bills are only a small part of the money supply.

Another way for the central bank to increase the money supply is to buy government fixed-income securities in the market. When the central bank buys these government securities, it puts money in the hands of the public. How does a central bank such as the Federal Reserve pay for this? As strange as it sounds, they simply create the money out of thin air and transfer it to those people selling the securities! To shrink the money supply, the central bank does the opposite and sells government securities. The money with which the buyer pays the central bank is essentially taken out of circulation. Keep in mind that we are generalizing in this example to keep things simple. (For more information, see the Federal (the Fed) Reserve Tutorial.)

Conclusion
Remember, as long as people have faith in the currency, a central bank can issue more of it.
Definitions provided by www.investopedia.com.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Highway Robbery - The Federal Reserve. Part1

So this is how our money system works since 1912. The Federal Reserve is a government entity comprised of Private and Public entities. the Private entities are comprised of 12 private regional Federal reserve banks, each with it's own board of directors. Since 1980 all depository institutions are required to set aside reserves with the Federal Reserve.

Let's start with the Federal Reserve Rate? Have you ever heard of it? Do you know what it is? The Federal Reserve (which is a group of banks and president appointed board members) can dictate the rate at which the big banks loan money to the small banks. This gives the big banks (which are part of the Fed, and the decision making process) huge control over the nations money, keep in mind these smaller banks are required to store money with the Fed in the first place and if they need money they have to have it lent to them from the the Fed.

There's another business that operates this way.. Organized Crime.

"Yeah me and Vinny over here are goings to holds your monies for yous, you know to keep it safe and all, and just in case things get ugly you know, like the stock markets crashes or somethings, and if yous need some monies, yous can come see me and Vinny here and we'll give you a loan see?"

Basically the Fed is highway robbery. It was formed by the major New York Banks of the early 1900's Including JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller Jr on a private island off the coast of Georgia appropriately called "Jekyll Island". Here's a quote from the founder of Forbes Magazine:

Forbes magazine founder B. C. Forbes wrote:

"Picture a party of the nation’s greatest bankers stealing out of New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness, stealthily riding hundreds of miles South, embarking on a mysterious launch, sneaking onto an island deserted by all but a few servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the names of not one of them was once mentioned, lest the servants learn the identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret expedition in the history of American finance. I am not romancing; I am giving to the world, for the first time, the real story of how the famous Aldrich currency report, the foundation of our new currency system, was written.[68]"


This rabbit hole is deeper than can be covered in one post let alone a book. So I will continue to dig into the matter and post the findings in parts.