By
Marilyn M. Barnewall
August 4, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
Putting
the illegal Federal Reserve System in charge of bank regulation is like
hiring John Dillinger to drive a Wells Fargo truck filled with money away
from the bank. Actually, the Dillinger alternative probably holds a higher
ratio of potential success for American taxpayers.
First, why is the Federal Reserve System (it is not a bank) illegal?
A real central bank is just that: a central bank owned and operated by
the government. It is not a private corporation.
Next, a quick read of the Tenth Amendment says “The powers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Since the Constitution does not give Congress the right to create a private
corporation – a non-government entity – called the Federal
Reserve and give it the responsibility for managing our currency (a responsibility
given by the Constitution to Congress and the Treasury), the only legal
way a true central bank can be created is by the States, respectively,
or by the people.
The argument with the Tenth Amendment defense against the Fed is that
the Congress legally represents “the people” and, thus, Congress
did have the right to create the Fed. That may deal with the “or
by the people” portion of the Tenth Amendment. It does not deal
with the “created by the States” part. And, if the Fed functioned
under the controls and auspices of the nation’s government as other
central banks do, they might have a point. But, it does not… so
those opposed still win the argument.
Perhaps the best argument against President Obama’s proposed expansion
of the Fed’s responsibilities so it also regulates savings and loans,
loan companies – anything that moves and makes or uses money –
is performance.
When
it was established in 1913, the Federal Reserve assumed responsibility
for a currency worth 100 pennies to the dollar. Today, that same dollar
is worth four pennies. How does this achievement qualify an organization
to be given more responsibilities so it can perform them poorly, too?
Most people also agree that the Federal Reserve System (not bank –
it is not a bank) is, along with past and present Treasury Secretaries,
heavily at fault for the current worldwide financial crisis. Surely we,
the people, don’t need to expand the Fed’s power base so it
can create even more crises.
Many people believe the reason President John F. Kennedy was assassinated
was his creation of Executive Order No. 11110. I first researched that
order in 1997. It was Kennedy’s attempt to strip the Fed of its
greatest power: the ability to charge the U.S. government interest for
loaning it money – or, more accurately, for creating money out of
thin air and charging interest for letting the American people use this
puff of magic. His EO was structured to return to the Treasury Department
the power to issue currency with no involvement by the Federal Reserve
System.
Under
EO 11110, Treasury was given the power “to issue silver certificates
against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the
Treasury.” Thus, for every ounce of silver in Treasury’s vault,
new money could be brought into circulation. The EO was signed on June
4, 1963, and, as anyone my age can remember, President John F. Kennedy
was killed later that year, on November 22nd. During the time Executive
Order 11110 gave the U.S. Treasury this power, close to $4.3 billion in
U.S. notes were brought into circulation.
This was an extremely important Executive Order – and not just for
the precedent it set. It lit a candle that showed America how to abolish
the Federal Reserve while not destroying the value of the currency in
existence yet putting forth a second form of currency that could stop
dependence on the first. Executive
Order 11110 made it possible for the nation to create its own currency
– backed by silver.
The primary problem with a gold- and/or silver-backed currency is that
the Fed has printed so much money there is too little gold and silver
to provide sufficient coins or paper currency in the volume required.
There are, however, alternatives. Just as the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) is talking about replacing the U.S. dollar as the international
currency of trade with a “basket of selected currencies,”
the U.S. dollar can be redesigned so its value rests on a combination
of gold, silver, and productivity. In general, a good economic rule of
thumb is currency growth that is symbiotic to the gross domestic product.
If American productivity grows by three percent more than last year, the
money supply is also allowed to grow by three percent.
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No additional silver certificates were issued after JFK’s assassination but the Order was never directly reversed. In 1987, Executive Order 12608, written by President Ronald Reagan, once again amended the original Order, Number 10289. To investigate the viability of the changes made by John Kennedy, you have to start with EO 10209. That’s the Order John Kennedy amended.
Here is the key paragraph from Executive Order 11110 – what JFK added to 10289:
“(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C.821(b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denomination of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption.”
The question must be asked: If this Executive Order has not been revoked, why has no president since Kennedy utilized it? Was the assassination of JFK a warning to future presidents? A lot of people think so. The debt to the Federal Reserve System’s creation of money and the social control thereof threatens the entire oligarchy system. It is what produced the elites who now shamelessly perform whatever fraud they can to steal even more from the people. Money provides the means for war… and America’s money is created by a privately-owned corporation that calls itself a central bank: the Federal Reserve. If that doesn’t scare you, nothing will.
Lacking
politicians with the will to even audit the Federal Reserve, how do we
get out of this mess?
I think Nassim Taleb, author of Black Swan (the best-selling non-fiction
book of 2007) made ten good “Black Swan” suggestions in a
recent Financial Times article.
For those who are unaware, Taleb defines a Black Swan (the financial services definition) as unexpected, rare events. Black Swans represent highly improbable events and have three characteristics: Unpredictability, massive impact; and, after the event is known, people’s explanation of what happened make it appear less random… more predictable than it actually was.
Here is how Taleb defines “Ten Principles for a Black Swan-proof World”
1. “Don’t give the recovery to the same idiots who created the mess.”
2. “Nothing should ever be too big to fail. People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it), should never be given a new bus.”
3. “Stop socialization of losses and privatization of gains.” Taleb warns: We've "managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the U.S. in the 2000s, the banks took over the government."
4. “Incentive bonuses are increasing America's financial risks. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards."
5. “High-leveraged debt increases the danger of a massive meltdown. Highly leveraged debt combined with bailouts and stimulus spending causes ‘wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error.’”
6. “No more derivatives... nobody understands these WMDs.” Taleb warns: "Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning. ... Derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it.” (Note: I’ve said the same thing since 1994! He’s absolutely right!)
7. “Restoring confidence' is for Ponzis, politicians and economists… governments cannot stop the rumors." People who talk about ‘restoring confidence’ are usually hiding something.
8. “Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab."
9.
“Never count on Wall Street advice or management for retirement.”
As you can imagine, Taleb is not popular with the guys and gals at Goldman
Sachs for this one!
10. “Let entrepreneurs, not bankers, take
risks and run America.” Entrepreneurs understand how to
manage risk. They do not expect profits without risk and they do not expect
others to cover their losses (taxpayers) while they reap profits (investment
bankers).
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I believe Mr. Taleb and I agree that the path to America’s economic recovery does not lie in the arms of the Federal Reserve System or Dr. Ben Bernanke. Will someone please explain this to President Obama’s economic advisors? Maybe to Obama?
� 2009 Marilyn M. Barnewall - All Rights Reserved
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Marilyn Barnewall received her graduate degree in Banking from the University of Colorado Graduate School of Business in 1978. She has authored seven non-fiction books about banking, two are listed at Oxford and Cambridge University libraries in Great Britain. Her current book, When the Swan’s Neck Breaks, details the banking problems she foresaw in 2006. Of the 24 predictions made in the book, 22 have happened. It is fiction but readers refer to it as docu-fiction.
Barnewall was named one of America's top 100 businesswomen in the book, What It Takes (Dolphin/Doubleday; Gardenswartz and Roe) and was one of the founders of the Committee of 200, the official organization of America's top 200 businesswomen. She can be found in Who's:Who in America (2005-08), Who's Who of American Women (2006-08), Who's Who in Finance and Business (2006-08), and Who's Who in the World (2008).
Web site:
E-Mail: marilynmacg@juno.com
