Ralph Nader Destroys the Federal Reserve in Open Letter – Calls it “Out of Control, Private Government”

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When it comes to the Fed, Congress is mired in hypocrisy. The anti-regulation, de-regulation crowd on Capitol Hill shuts its mouth when it comes to the most powerful regulators of all – you and the Federal Reserve. Meanwhile, Congress goes along with the out-of-control, private government of the Fed—unaccountable to the national legislature. Moreover, your massive monetary injections scarcely led to any jobs on the ground, other than stock and bond processors.

– Ralph Nader in his letter to Janet Yellen

Ralph Nader gets it. In fact, he get it so much that he published a book last year titled: Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.

Nevertheless, in case you need more proof of just how profoundly he understand how this neo-feudal gulag economy functions, read the following letter he wrote to Federal Reserve Chairwoman, Janet Yellen, on behalf of savers.

Here it is, in its full glory:

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When it Really Mattered, Ben Bernanke Coddled, Protected & Bailed Out Financial Criminals

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Most of you will have seen Ben Bernanke’s recent crocodile tears regarding how he wished more individuals were held responsible, for you know, destroying the American middle class and handing over the nation to a handful of criminal oligarchs.

As David Dayen notes, he is completely full of shit. As usual.

From the Intercept:

Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke joined practically everyone in America by saying in his new memoir, The Courage to Act, that more Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for criminal misconduct that led to the financial crisis.

“It would have been my preference to have more investigation of individual action, since obviously everything what went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm,” he wrote.

Unlike practically everyone else in America, however, Bernanke was in a pretty good position to actually facilitate criminal misconduct proceedings, if he wanted to see them so badly — as  head of the nation’s most powerful bank supervisory agency from 2006 to 2014.

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The Oligarch Recovery – Study Shows Real Wages Have Plunged for Low Income Workers During the “Recovery”

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The following article from the New York Times is shameful in many ways. While the paper is forced to cover the undeniable fact that real wages for the lowest income Americans have plunged during the so-called “economic recovery” over the past six years, it fails to actually pin blame on the undemocratic, oligarch institution most responsible for this humanitarian crisis: The Federal Reserve.

Of course, I and many others have been saying this for years, but now more than half a decade into what is supposed to be a recovery, people are finally being forced to admit what this really is —  large scale theft.

In fact, Ben Bernanke and his crew of upward wealth distributing academics have pulled off the greatest wealth heist in American history. In its wake we have been left with a hollowed out, asset striped Banana Republic. Thanks for playin’ Main Street. Or more accurately, thanks for being played.

From the New York Times:

Despite steady gains in hiring, a falling unemployment rate and other signs of an improving economy, take-home pay for many American workers has effectively fallen since the economic recovery began in 2009, according to a new study by an advocacy group that is to be released on Thursday.

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The Oligarch Recovery – Low Income Americans Can’t Afford to Live in Any Metro Area

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We were told we needed to bail out Wall Street in order to save Main Street. Well the results are in…

Wall Street has never done better, and Main Street has never done worse.

From the Huffington Post:

Low-income workers and their families do not earn enough to live in even the least expensive metropolitan American communities, according to a new analysis of families’ living costs published Wednesday.

The analysis, released by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, is an annual update of the think tank’s Family Budget Calculator that reflects new 2014 data. The Family Budget Calculator is a formula designed to determine the income “required for families to attain a secure yet modest standard of living” in 618 different communities across the country that the U.S. Census Bureau defines as metropolitan areas. The formula uses data collected by the government and some nonprofit groups to measure costs of housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, “other necessities” like clothing, and taxes for families of 10 different compositions in these specific locales.

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Did the Bank of England Admit Financial Markets Aren’t “Real”?

On a day witnessing such tremendous financial market volatility, this seems like the perfect story. The Bank of England has announced an “Open Forum” to be held on November 11, with the title: Building Real Markets for the Good of the People. No, I’m not making this up.

Here’s a screenshot from the BOE website:

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We have to “build real markets?”

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Banks Squirm as Congress Moves to Cut the 6% Dividend Paid to Them by the Federal Reserve

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On December 23 of this year, the Federal Reserve will be 99 years old.  And throughout that 99 years, regardless of boom, bust, recession or Great Depression, the biggest Wall Street banks have been enjoying a 6 percent, risk-free return on the capital they hold at the Fed in the form of dividends.

Have you looked at your checking or money market bank statement lately from JPMorgan Chase or Citibank? How about the statement showing the interest you’re earning on your mortgage escrow account with the big banks? While the country suffers through the lingering effects of the Great Recession caused by the biggest Wall Street banks, the public typically receives less than 1 percent on their deposits at the big banks, while the government has legislated a permanent, risk-free 6 percent guarantee to the Wall Street banks for their capital on deposit at the Fed.  Now that’s an entitlement program that needs to die!

This corporate welfare program gets even better: if the shares of stock were acquired prior to March 28, 1942, the 6 percent risk-free dividend is tax exempt and the bank doesn’t have to pay corporate taxes on it.

– From the excellent 2012 Wall Street on Parade article: Kill This Entitlement Program: The 6% Risk-Free Dividend the Fed Has Been Paying Wall Street Banks For Almost a Century

Did you know that the Federal Reserve pays an annual 6% dividend to its shareholders, i.e., the member banks of the cartel? Must be nice, considering savers who had nothing to do with cratering the world economy, and failed to receive a taxpayer funded bailout, can barely earn 0.5% on their money. It’s also quite bizarre. How many other “public institutions” have private shareholders to whom they pay 6% risk free dividends?

None, which once again highlights the point that the Federal Reserve is NOT a public institution working on behalf of the citizenry, but is rather a banking cartel designed to enriched and protect its member banks (as we saw on clear display in 2008).

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Introducing “Trickle-Out Oligarch Economics” – How at Least $21 Trillion in Wealth Fled Offshore

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Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to make it clear that just because I point out the following doesn’t mean I like tax and think we need more of it. Rather, there are two main points I want to get across.

1) Oligarchs create tax loopholes for themselves. Oligarchs control the politicians who write legislation to suit oligarch needs. Whenever you hear politicians talk about taxing the wealthy they mean the suckers in the top 10% who are not politically-connected oligarchs. The super rich will never be touched by such legislation. They will always have loopholes available to them. This is why the statement “we need higher taxes on the rich” is basically a bullshit political talking point.

What we need is fundamental systemic change. This means truly restructuring the entire financial system, from Central Bank power, to Wall Street funding both political parties, to lengthy jail sentences for financial criminals. If we do that, oligarchs won’t be able to parasitically amass billions so easily in the first place.

2) You’ll notice much of the wealth that has been moved offshore originated from dictators who bled their home countries dry of resources as their populations starved. Many of these dictators had the full support of the U.S. government throughout their decades in power, during which time they plundered and destroyed entire nations.

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Video of the Day: F*ck the Fed

On this day, when the banker-cartel commonly known as the Federal Reserve is set to announce its latest decision in central planning, I thought it would be wise to revisit an old, yet classic video which calls out this neo-feudal institution for the state-sanctioned criminal enterprise it is. Neal Fox summarizes my sentiments exactly with three … Read more

New Survey: Federal Reserve Employees are “Demoralized,” “Distrustful” and “Afraid to Speak Out”

“We’re supposed to oversee a sprawling and complicated financial system and huge banks — all the while making sure we don’t implement policy that hurts the economy — and we can’t even properly manage ourselves,” said one Fed official who helps develop regulatory policy. “How can we be trusted to supervise the system when the Fed can barely supervise its own staff?”

– From the Huffington Post article: Federal Reserve Employees Afraid To Speak Put Financial System At Risk

My readers know that not only do I not trust the Federal Reserve, but I think it is one of the most dangerous and immoral institutions operating in America today. It’s not about particular individuals that I think need to be replaced (although Larry Summers will be an absolute nightmare), it is that I do not think any institution should ever have the power to credit unlimited currency and credit and distribute it at will to whoever they want with very little oversight. While I don’t write about the Fed as much as I used to, I suggest you go back and reread my 2011 article:  Why Fiat Money is Immoral.

The Huffington Post article highlighted here is full of disturbing survey results, which without question demonstrate that the most powerful institution in the U.S. is completely dysfunctional. There are some other hidden nuggets in there as well. Such as this:

The Fed refused to make public a broader set of survey results that would allow for a comparison between the policy unit and other sections inside the banking supervision and regulation division.

Stier, whose group doesn’t have access to the Fed’s survey results because the law that calls for government employee surveys doesn’t apply to the Fed, said he was disappointed in the survey results. He praised the Fed for conducting the survey. “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” he said.

Wait a minute. Why does the law the applies to government employee surveys not apply to the Fed? It is because the Federal Reserve is not a government agency but rather a private bank? You’d think the Huff Post would’ve dug into that bizarre angle a little deeper. Kind of important.

Or what about this:

Several top regulators at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington who helped combat the financial crisis have since left, many for lucrative positions either at leading banks or at consultancies that work for banks. Current regulators fear experienced staffers will continue to leave the Fed for the financial services industry, depriving the regulator of key experience as it finalizes several post-crisis measures and sets about gauging banks’ compliance with new rules.

Hey guys, thanks for all the bailouts, now come work for us. Shameless, disgusting, unacceptable.

More from the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — Regulators overseeing the nation’s largest financial institutions are distrustful of their bosses, afraid to speak out, and feeling isolated, according to a confidential survey this year of Federal Reserve employees.

The findings from the April survey of roughly 400 employees, presented to Fed staff during multiple meetings in June and July and obtained by The Huffington Post, show a workforce that is demoralized, and an institution where teamwork is nonexistent, innovation and creativity are discouraged and employees feel underutilized.

An overwhelming majority of Fed regulators are proud to work at the central bank and believe in its mission of supervising the financial system and ensuring stability. They also trust and have good relationships with their immediate supervisors. But most say that top leaders are failing the organization, in part by not communicating honestly, and that employees are in the wrong jobs, or are poorly managed.

About a third of workers surveyed in the policy unit agreed that it was “safe to speak up and constructively challenge things around here,” documents show.

“That tells me you don’t have the culture of debate and engagement that you need so that questions are asked,” said Angelides.

About a third of workers surveyed in the policy unit agreed that it was “safe to speak up and constructively challenge things around here,” documents show.

“That tells me you don’t have the culture of debate and engagement that you need so that questions are asked,” said Angelides.

Just about half, or 51 percent, of policy employees agreed with the statement: “I trust the senior leaders of this organization.” Fifty-six percent of the entire banking supervision and regulation division felt the same way.

Less than half of workers in the Fed policy unit agreed that the unit’s senior leaders “act in alignment with our organization’s core values or guiding principles.” Fewer than 40 percent said they are encouraged to be creative and innovative.

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