Published: March 09, 2009 08:17 pm      

COLUMN: Abolish the Federal Reserve

The Obama administration’s so-called economic stimulus package has been a lightning rod of controversy. It has, like most political issues, divided America. It’s rare that you find one sitting on the fence; many people think it’s a great idea, a fine example of representative government doing what it can for its citizens while an equal number of folks believe it to be one of the government’s most excessive and wasteful investments.

Both sides have gnashed their teeth at one another over what they perceive to be the rights and wrongs of the deal. You’d have to expect that with a price tag of $787 billion and future implications that will far exceed that sum. But, as mammoth as the bill may be, it’s a pittance in the whole scheme of things.

“A pittance”, you ask?

It is. To understand that, we must distance ourselves from this contrived two-party conflict over the stimulus package which is itself a distraction created by the government and promoted by the press. We must focus not on the ranting of the rodeo clowns in Congress but rather on the reality of this day and age and. Our world is so out of sorts that this $787 billion pales in comparison to everything that the federal government and its cronies have done and have promised to do since last summer. The real price tag for the total recovery process — whether by bailout, loan or donation — now exceeds $9.7 trillion. It’s really quite unbelievable that we’re nearing $10 trillion in giveaways. It’s unbelievable, yet it’s reality.

Unfortunately, it’s a reality that we as citizens cannot control. As a matter of fact, neither can our elected officials. You see, most of those trillions were not spread about by the representative arm of government. Instead, they were spent — even created out of thin air — by the ultimate monstrosity of Government Gone Bad: the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is our central banking system, created by an act of Congress signed in 1913. Feeding off of the lingering fear created by the Panic of 1907 when the stock exchange dropped by 50 percent from the previous year, it was an easy sell for the Wilson administration. They blamed the panic on the nation’s lack of a central bank (which we had been without since 1836), so, to casual observers, it made sense for Congress to fashion The Federal Reserve as the means to supposedly prevent all future panics and recessions.

It has not lived up to that purpose. Truthfully, it has failed miserably. Many economists agree that the Fed was solely responsible for the Great Depression because it had interfered far too much in the free markets, pumping reams of new money into the economy in the boom of the 1920’s and then overcompensating so much after the Crash that it delayed the market’s ability to correct itself and right its wrongs, prolonging the agony (this sounds eerily similar to today’s situation).

These problems continue and are exacerbated by the Federal Reserve’s unmatched and unrestrained power. It is a private cartel of banks that is not an entity of our federal government, even though it is counted as one. It is the world’s controlling hand, the rule of which is dictated only by its internal powers. It issues our currency at its whim, not at the discretion of our President or Congress, inflating the money supply and devaluing its worth. It can dictate the ebb and flow of credit in the marketplace. Because of all this, we don’t have a true free market system in the United States or the world because the Fed can dictate — rather than maintain — how much money is in the economy and it can charge a fee for its use.

The Federal Reserve can make or break our economy and there’s not a thing we can do about it. And, that’s what makes it a roadblock to a successful recovery from this recession/depression. Our elected officials — and therefore we — have no absolutely say in how our money is managed. It’s wrong and it’s illegal: Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution states that “The Congress shall have power to ... coin money (and) regulate the value thereof.”

In 1913 it gave away that power, our power. It’s time that we took it back and lived by the Constitution. Our government must abolish the Federal Reserve if not bring intense accountability and transparency to it. If it doesn’t, then there’s a very good chance that in only 100 years of its existence the Reserve will have destroyed our once great nation.

Bob Confer is a Gasport resident and vice president of Confer Plastics Inc. in North Tonawanda. E-mail him at bobconfer@juno.com.