Audit the Fed Bill Passes the House

Ron Paul's Parting Shot...

Ron Paul wrote a book called "End the Fed" in 2009, was appointed to the House Banking Committee last year, and spoke out about the role the Fed has played in the ongoing financial crisis during his Presidential campaign.  As a member of the Banking Committee he asked tough questions of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.  Today his Audit the Fed bill easily passed in the House.  It won't pass in the Senate or be signed by the President without enormous public pressure, but it has raised our awareness and made it much harder for more bailouts to happen, at least before the November election.

Because the Fed sets interest rates and controls the amount of money in the economy, they are in effect setting the cost of money. If everything you buy and all your income is priced in dollars, then the Fed is the all powerful Oz.  The man behind the curtain.  If he is allowed to continue behind closed doors, and with very little oversight, then we can expect more of the same.

The Fed also deliberately causes inflation as a matter of policy. Their target is 2% per year. Their performance since the Fed was created in 1913 is 95% inflation. This means that a dollar today will buy what a nickel bought in 1913. But the currency debasement by printing Federal Reserve Notes out of thin air is made all the worse by the fact that it is created as interest bearing debt that you and all other taxpayers are on the hook for.  It doesn't have to be this way and wasn't until the Fed came along.

We thank Ron Paul for his effort to pull back the curtain.  Now we need to elect some more "Tea Party" candidates to continue his work.

Watch for more articles here on banking and sound money principles.

Public Sector Unions

Collective Bargaining and the Taxpayer...

Many states are having trouble balancing their budgets due to unrestrained spending during boom years with little put aside for the lean years. During good times state spending included generous contracts to the public sector unions. Few people cared or even noticed since there was little impact on our daily lives. But as reality sets in and states have to cut costs to equal reduced revenues, these contracts and the method of negotiating them is being reexamined.