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14 Reasons Why We Should Nationalize The Federal Reserve
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
November 7, 2011
One of the most important steps that we could take to bring prosperity back to America would be to nationalize the Federal Reserve. Doing so would allow the federal government to quit borrowing money, dramatically reduce taxes and eventually pay off the entire U.S. national debt. Instead of inheriting the largest debt in the history of the world, future generations would actually have a chance at economic prosperity because they would not be forced to pay off the horrific debt of previous generations. The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine, it has almost completely destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar and it has an absolutely nightmarish track record of incompetence. There are no good reasons to keep the status quo. Our current debt-based monetary system will inevitably lead to a complete and total economic collapse. We desperately need to make a change while we still can. As you will see below, there are a ton of good reasons why we should nationalize the Federal Reserve.
Right now, most Americans believe that the Federal Reserve is actually an agency of the federal government. But that is simply not the case. The truth is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.
The Federal Reserve openly admits as much. For example, in defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve stated in court that it was “not an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
So who owns the Federal Reserve?
As the Federal Reserve’s own website describes, it is the member banks that own it….
The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation’s central banking system, are organized much like private corporations–possibly leading to some confusion about “ownership.” For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.
The debt-based monetary system established by the Federal Reserve has greatly enriched the big banks and the people that own them. This has been at the expense of the American people.
A private central bank should not issue our currency, set interest rates and run our economy. Rather, we need to return control over the currency to the American people where it belongs.
The following are 14 reasons why we should nationalize the Federal Reserve….
#1 The U.S. Constitution says that the federal government is the one that should be issuing our money.
In particular, according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, it is the U.S. Congress that has been given the responsibility to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.
#2 Our current debt-based monetary system is a perpetual debt machine. It is absolutely imperative that we nationalize the Federal Reserve and begin to issue debt-free money.
In a previous article about money and debt, I explained how more government debt is created whenever the U.S. government puts more money into circulation….
When the government wants more money, the U.S. government swaps U.S. Treasury bonds for “Federal Reserve notes”, thus creating more government debt. Usually the money isn’t even printed up – most of the time it is just electronically credited to the government. The Federal Reserve creates these “Federal Reserve notes” out of thin air. These Federal Reserve notes are backed by nothing and have no intrinsic value of their own.
This process creates a huge problem. When each new dollar is created, the interest owed by the federal government on that new dollar is not also created at the same time.
Therefore, more debt is actually created than the amount of money that the federal government receives from the Federal Reserve.
This is a Ponzi scheme that is designed to drain wealth from the American people and transfer it to the banking system.
This is why I call the Federal Reserve system a perpetual debt machine. Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5,000 times larger than it was 100 years ago.
Back in 1910, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the national debt was only about $2.6 billion.
By going to a system of debt-free money, the U.S. government would never have to borrow a single dollar ever again.
#3 Our current debt-based monetary system requires very high personal income taxes to pay for it. It is no accident that the personal income tax was introduced at about the same time that the Federal Reserve system came into existence.
If we nationalized the Federal Reserve and capped federal government spending at a reasonable percentage of GDP, it would be entirely possible to massively cut taxes and still keep our promises regarding Social Security and other important social programs at the same time.
I believe that eventually the entire personal income tax system could be completely wiped out and the IRS could be totally shut down. This would save our economy billions upon billions of dollars in income tax compliance costs.
However, as an initial first step, I believe that we should eliminate all payroll taxes, all “self-employment taxes” and all taxes on the first $100,000 earned by every American.
This would provide much needed relief to the millions of poor and middle income families that have been hurt so badly by this economic downturn.
Also, I believe that we could instantly reduce the corporate tax rate to levels that would be competitive with the rest of the world, while closing corporate tax loopholes at the same time. This would remove the temptation for companies to leave the United States in order to escape our brutally high corporate tax rates.
Yes, the proposals above would definitely cut taxes.
So where would we make up the difference?
Well, the U.S. Constitution provides one clue. According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress has the right to impose “duties, imposts and excises” on goods sold in this country.
For way too long, big corporations have been taking advantage of sweatshops in the third world. For way too long, other nations have used predatory trade practices to take unfair advantage of us. For way too long, we have allowed nations with horrific human rights records to ship their goods into our country for free.
Well, we need to bring that to an end. By raising tariffs we would raise money for the federal government and we could potentially start to reverse the flow of jobs and businesses that have been leaving this country.
Access to the U.S. market is a privilege, not a right. High tariffs would be imposed on goods from any country that allows slave labor wages to be paid. Very high tariffs would be imposed on goods from any country that is using predatory trade practices against us. Extremely high tariffs would be imposed on any nation that does not respect basic human rights.
However, please keep in mind that none of this would work if we did not nationalize the Federal Reserve. The tax cuts proposed above would be suicidal under our current debt-based monetary system. But if we nationalize the Fed, we really could do this. It may sound crazy, but it really would work.
#4 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, there would be no more budget deficits. If the federal government was a bit short one year, it would just print up a little bit of extra money in order to make up the difference.
It would also be very important to cap federal government spending as a percentage of GDP so that we don’t have crazy Congress critters creating a lot of inflation by spending us into oblivion.
Just because we would be adopting a debt-free monetary system does not mean that we could throw spending discipline out the window. Rather, it would actually become more important than ever.
#5 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we would instantly reduce the national debt by 1.6 trillion dollars. That is the amount that is currently on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve just created this money out of thin air anyway, so it was never their money to begin with. Some members of Congress have already proposed cancelling the debt held by the Federal Reserve, and it is a great idea.
#6 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we could eventually get rid of the entire national debt.
Under our current system, the U.S. national debt will never, ever be paid off. We are 15 trillion dollars in debt, and at this point we add more than a trillion dollars to that number every year.
As I have written about previously, if the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
But under our current system we are not paying it off. Rather we keep piling up more debt at an astounding pace.
In a system of debt-free money, there would be no more budget deficits, and we could actually start slowly paying off the national debt with newly issued “United States money”.
This would have to be done very slowly so as to not shock the financial system, but it could be done. As U.S. debt becomes due, a small percentage of it could be retired each year.
Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
November 7, 2011
One of the most important steps that we could take to bring prosperity back to America would be to nationalize the Federal Reserve. Doing so would allow the federal government to quit borrowing money, dramatically reduce taxes and eventually pay off the entire U.S. national debt. Instead of inheriting the largest debt in the history of the world, future generations would actually have a chance at economic prosperity because they would not be forced to pay off the horrific debt of previous generations. The Federal Reserve is a perpetual debt machine, it has almost completely destroyed the value of the U.S. dollar and it has an absolutely nightmarish track record of incompetence. There are no good reasons to keep the status quo. Our current debt-based monetary system will inevitably lead to a complete and total economic collapse. We desperately need to make a change while we still can. As you will see below, there are a ton of good reasons why we should nationalize the Federal Reserve.
Right now, most Americans believe that the Federal Reserve is actually an agency of the federal government. But that is simply not the case. The truth is that the Federal Reserve is about as “federal” as Federal Express is.
The Federal Reserve openly admits as much. For example, in defending itself against a Bloomberg request for information under the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Reserve stated in court that it was “not an agency” of the U.S. government and therefore not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
So who owns the Federal Reserve?
As the Federal Reserve’s own website describes, it is the member banks that own it….
The twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks, which were established by Congress as the operating arms of the nation’s central banking system, are organized much like private corporations–possibly leading to some confusion about “ownership.” For example, the Reserve Banks issue shares of stock to member banks. However, owning Reserve Bank stock is quite different from owning stock in a private company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition of membership in the System. The stock may not be sold, traded, or pledged as security for a loan; dividends are, by law, 6 percent per year.
The debt-based monetary system established by the Federal Reserve has greatly enriched the big banks and the people that own them. This has been at the expense of the American people.
A private central bank should not issue our currency, set interest rates and run our economy. Rather, we need to return control over the currency to the American people where it belongs.
The following are 14 reasons why we should nationalize the Federal Reserve….
#1 The U.S. Constitution says that the federal government is the one that should be issuing our money.
In particular, according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, it is the U.S. Congress that has been given the responsibility to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.
#2 Our current debt-based monetary system is a perpetual debt machine. It is absolutely imperative that we nationalize the Federal Reserve and begin to issue debt-free money.
In a previous article about money and debt, I explained how more government debt is created whenever the U.S. government puts more money into circulation….
When the government wants more money, the U.S. government swaps U.S. Treasury bonds for “Federal Reserve notes”, thus creating more government debt. Usually the money isn’t even printed up – most of the time it is just electronically credited to the government. The Federal Reserve creates these “Federal Reserve notes” out of thin air. These Federal Reserve notes are backed by nothing and have no intrinsic value of their own.
This process creates a huge problem. When each new dollar is created, the interest owed by the federal government on that new dollar is not also created at the same time.
Therefore, more debt is actually created than the amount of money that the federal government receives from the Federal Reserve.
This is a Ponzi scheme that is designed to drain wealth from the American people and transfer it to the banking system.
This is why I call the Federal Reserve system a perpetual debt machine. Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5,000 times larger than it was 100 years ago.
Back in 1910, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, the national debt was only about $2.6 billion.
By going to a system of debt-free money, the U.S. government would never have to borrow a single dollar ever again.
#3 Our current debt-based monetary system requires very high personal income taxes to pay for it. It is no accident that the personal income tax was introduced at about the same time that the Federal Reserve system came into existence.
If we nationalized the Federal Reserve and capped federal government spending at a reasonable percentage of GDP, it would be entirely possible to massively cut taxes and still keep our promises regarding Social Security and other important social programs at the same time.
I believe that eventually the entire personal income tax system could be completely wiped out and the IRS could be totally shut down. This would save our economy billions upon billions of dollars in income tax compliance costs.
However, as an initial first step, I believe that we should eliminate all payroll taxes, all “self-employment taxes” and all taxes on the first $100,000 earned by every American.
This would provide much needed relief to the millions of poor and middle income families that have been hurt so badly by this economic downturn.
Also, I believe that we could instantly reduce the corporate tax rate to levels that would be competitive with the rest of the world, while closing corporate tax loopholes at the same time. This would remove the temptation for companies to leave the United States in order to escape our brutally high corporate tax rates.
Yes, the proposals above would definitely cut taxes.
So where would we make up the difference?
Well, the U.S. Constitution provides one clue. According to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress has the right to impose “duties, imposts and excises” on goods sold in this country.
For way too long, big corporations have been taking advantage of sweatshops in the third world. For way too long, other nations have used predatory trade practices to take unfair advantage of us. For way too long, we have allowed nations with horrific human rights records to ship their goods into our country for free.
Well, we need to bring that to an end. By raising tariffs we would raise money for the federal government and we could potentially start to reverse the flow of jobs and businesses that have been leaving this country.
Access to the U.S. market is a privilege, not a right. High tariffs would be imposed on goods from any country that allows slave labor wages to be paid. Very high tariffs would be imposed on goods from any country that is using predatory trade practices against us. Extremely high tariffs would be imposed on any nation that does not respect basic human rights.
However, please keep in mind that none of this would work if we did not nationalize the Federal Reserve. The tax cuts proposed above would be suicidal under our current debt-based monetary system. But if we nationalize the Fed, we really could do this. It may sound crazy, but it really would work.
#4 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, there would be no more budget deficits. If the federal government was a bit short one year, it would just print up a little bit of extra money in order to make up the difference.
It would also be very important to cap federal government spending as a percentage of GDP so that we don’t have crazy Congress critters creating a lot of inflation by spending us into oblivion.
Just because we would be adopting a debt-free monetary system does not mean that we could throw spending discipline out the window. Rather, it would actually become more important than ever.
#5 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we would instantly reduce the national debt by 1.6 trillion dollars. That is the amount that is currently on the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve just created this money out of thin air anyway, so it was never their money to begin with. Some members of Congress have already proposed cancelling the debt held by the Federal Reserve, and it is a great idea.
#6 If we nationalize the Federal Reserve, we could eventually get rid of the entire national debt.
Under our current system, the U.S. national debt will never, ever be paid off. We are 15 trillion dollars in debt, and at this point we add more than a trillion dollars to that number every year.
As I have written about previously, if the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the national debt.
But under our current system we are not paying it off. Rather we keep piling up more debt at an astounding pace.
In a system of debt-free money, there would be no more budget deficits, and we could actually start slowly paying off the national debt with newly issued “United States money”.
This would have to be done very slowly so as to not shock the financial system, but it could be done. As U.S. debt becomes due, a small percentage of it could be retired each year.
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