What is it with the Ron Paul crowd and the Fed... don't they know

[Coexist]

that's what gives them away? "End the Fed" is like a priest's collar, for crying out loud.

Just had to get that out there. They are spamming every thread on the Occupy sites I've been going to with "forget Wall St. Its the FED". They even have Occupy the Fed FB pages where they plot to "educate the sheeple" at the #Occupy protests/rallies.

Sigh.

[Duct Tape]

1. Ron Paul and his cult never quite get it. Sometimes Paul will say

something sane but then he spends the next few weeks spewing bullshit about the government to make up for it.

[negativenihil]

2. Ron Paul is the Ralph Nader of the 2012 election.

Let them get all worked up for this well-documented racist. All he will do is serve to siphon votes away from whom ever the GOP nominates.

[NNN0LHI]

11. No, the Paul supporters are pond scum but they are not idiots

Every Paul supporter around here pulls down their Ron Paul yard signs and replaces them with the Republican nominees yard signs as soon as the convention is settled.

They know how important winning is.

Don

[la la]

18. boy- are you correct on that one!

although, i haven't seen any ron paul signs in their usual spots---which i find a bit interesting....

[the other one]

19. Didn't Gore WIN the popular vote by a half million votes?

The Supreme Court handed Florida to Bush by halting a legal recount that was asked for bu Gpre because the GOP SOS threw out votes?

Do you really think it would have different if Nader wasn't in the race?

Would you like to buy a combination bridge / jail?

[krabigirl]

44. not where I live. Some of my neighbors are RP supporters and they just wrote him in for 2008.

[banned from Kos]

3. The Fed is government - which is to be blamed for everything.

and never a negative word can be uttered against the private sector.

[emcguffie]

24. The Fed is not government. It is a private bank.

The Fed is one area where I agree with the libertarians. Our tax load would decrease tremendously without the Fed.

WHen money is created by the Fed, we owe them interest on it. That interest comes from our taxes. They wave their magic wand, and we owe them interest. They don't lend us money they have, the literally call it into being by lending it to us. At interest.

Yes, get rid of the Fed.

[banned from Kos]

29. Garbage. the Fed pays taxpayers interest --- in fact $125 billion 09-10

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/01/federal-reserve-2010-record-profit-financial-crisis-intervention.html

You are WAY out of your league here.

[girl gone mad]

30. The Fed is paying more in interest..

because they've bought up trillions of dollars in toxic securities that the banks could not otherwise offload. Eventually, this stupidity will generate massive losses for US taxpayers. That's unavoidable.

[banned from Kos]

31. Who is the Fed paying interest to?

The only interest the Fed pays is Interest on Reserves (IOR) and that is .25 of 1 per cent.

Yet they EARN 1-5% interest for taxpayers.

You need a class in finance - you would LOVE it. You are bright for sure!

[emcguffie]

33. I think not. But I'll do more research.

My understanding is this is fiat banking. I remember in high school in AP American History learning that the Fed made money out of nothing. And when it is created, it is lent to borrowers who then owe interest.

It may be that there is some way that the Fed pays interest at times, but the Fed certainly collects interest. Why do you think they ever wanted to set up a private central bank, if not to make money from it?

I had a silver certificate, briefly, when Kennedy was President. Foolish child that I was, I didn't recognize its significance, I think, and probably spent it. There weren't many issued before he was assassinated.

[ProfessorGAC]

35. BfK Is Right

You need to go back and reread the actual operational system of the Fed. The concern about fiat money isn't the interest. It's the oversupply of "m" which can easily trigger inflation in a period where, due to low employment and other factors, also exhibits low "q".

Now the velocity doesn't go up, because there aren't really that many extra goods and services so to balance the tautology, prices have to rise.

GAC

[emcguffie]

49. That terminology is over my head.

I did go to the library and get some books.

It seems to me there are those who say one thing, and nowadays there are those who say the opposite. Really difficult for us average folk to discern the truth of the matter.

One thing Ron Paul has complained about that resonates with me is the secrecy of the Fed. Maybe in theory they are supposed to be regulated by Congress, but if he's telling the truth, that means that the Fed tells the Congress what the Fed feels like Congress needs to know. And it is an independent institution, which is owned by other banks. Paul's been hollering that we need to audit the Fed, and I think that sounds good to me.

That's how that info finally came out about all those trillions spent to bail out foreign banks. Who pays for that? It was quite a bit of money, more than TARP, as I recall. And was kept a big secret.

SO the Fed says they pay this much back to the Treasury. If we can never look at their books, how do we know if this is true or not?

I tell you, I do not believe the bankers, those guys who set up the Fed, did it without any self interest, not for a minute. Why was it voted on the way it was, at night, on the 23rd of December? Why did Wilson come to regret signing that law so much? There is more here than meets the eye, and to just believe what you are told by them that's telling is no longer enough for me.

Audit the Fed. Completely.

[banned from Kos]

52. The Fed is audited - has been every year and the audit is made public.

Ron Paul is an OBGYN so don't listen to him. What he means by an "audit" is for Congress to butt in on Fed policy making. And that would be a disaster!

Congress cannot function now, imagine having goldbugs and politicians fucking with the money supply before elections? (shudder the thought)

Here is a link to the independent audit which the GAO orders.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/rptcongress/annual08/pdf/audits.pdf

I assure you Ron Paul or any other "audit the Fed" type has no idea what they are saying. Due to Dodd-Frank the Fed is now releasing transactional info -- you cannot get more transparent than that.

[Name removed]

50. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[blogslut]

4. Sadly

The Paul zealots are somewhat adept at the interwebbish arts. They're as prolific as YouTube trolls.

[banned from Kos]

5. some are here unreccing this - I recced

and its at zero.

[Coexist]

6. that's ok.. I'm not looking for greatest

just looking to vent

[Vincardog]

8. Net recommendation: +3 votes (Your vote: +1)

[Earth_First]

7. Shit, some of the organizing members of our #Occypy group are Paulies...

I'm at wits end!

[brentspeak]

9. The Federal Reserve is a major culprit in the destroyed economy

Not the only culprit, but it plays a big part.

[banned from Kos]

10. Alan Greenspan ruined the Fed for many liberals with his Randian

non-regulatory approach.

He admitted he was wrong. It was a failure of leadership and not the institution.

Now we NEED the Fed. Bad.

[girl gone mad]

26. We need a central bank, we do not need the Fed.

Liberals should also support getting private banks out of the money printing business.

[banned from Kos]

32. The Fed is the epitome of a Central Bank!

and the dollar is the world's premier currency!

[Capitalocracy]

12. The Fed and Wall Street pretty much staff from the same pool.

No Ron Paul fan here, by the way.

[Coexist]

14. the Fed needs to ensure banks don't over leverage

and attempt to minimize inflation. Both important. I think we need the Fed... doing what it is supposed to. I see no upside to ending it.

[Capitalocracy]

17. We need a regulatory agency...

we don't need an agency serving as a direct policy decision-maker with massive conflicts of interest funneling money from the U.S. to the banks. The Fed is kind of both, although right now it's more the latter than the former, imho. I think we need to either preserve the good part and reform the bad, or better yet, rethink how we do the money supply in a more direct way, making it more democratic instead of making banks act as the middleman for all loans expanding the money supply. (And no, gold is not the answer.)

[girl gone mad]

27. We don't need the Federal Reserve.

Our Central Bank should be controlled by the government, not a cartel of private banks.

[slipslidingaway]

45. Geithner - head of the NY Fed since '03 and now Treasury Sec, - how did he do. n/t

[valerief]

13. The only people you should be singling out are the 1%, the ruling class.

Playing divide and conquer with everyone else only helps the 1%.

[inna]

42. so seemingly obvious that i'm at a loss why everybody doesn't get it, seriously

[slipslidingaway]

46. + 1000 n/t

[K8-EEE]

15. K&R! nt

[PETRUS]

16. Ron Paul is not my friend

And I'm a far cry from a libertarian, but the Fed is a problem. It is a public/private institution, and is not completely democratically accountable since the banks get to appoint a substantial number of the governors. (And the political appointees are from the biz, anyway.) It has a dual mandate to promote price stability and maximum employment, but has repeatedly shown preference for price stability (good for banks) over maximum employment (good for working folks). You won't hear me calling to "end" it, though - I'm not well informed enough to know if that's a good or a bad idea. But it - or its replacement - needs to be accountable to the people.

[xchrom]

20. Deregulation is the problem.

If the appropriate regulations are in place - banksters have to follow them.

It's a case where the revolving door wouldn't matter.

[FrenchieCat]

22. We agree.

[provis99]

21. the Paultards seem to think the Federal Reserve is a government institution.

I've tried explaining to some of them that the Federal Reserve is a private corporations, but it won't get through their thick anti-government skulls. They probably think Federal Express is a government courier corporation, too.

[AverageJoe90]

23. Actually, it's the other way around...........

most of the Paultards I've met claim it's private and owned by the Rothschild family, but it's actually mostly a government institution.....albeit one in serious need of restructuring.

[girl gone mad]

28. It's quasi-public.

Wielding powers which technically belong to the government and sending profits back to the Treasury, but implementng policies which are generally designed exclusively for the benefit of TBTF banks.

[emcguffie]

34. That's backwards. They realize that it's a private bank, --

-- that it's an institution that makes money for its owners, who are private individuals. The Federal Government does not own the Fed.

[Name removed]

51. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[emcguffie]

25. The fed is not government. It is a private bank.

In a way it is part of Wall Street. The folks who own the Fed are definitely in the 1%. They make a tremendous amount of money off of us, and it comes out of our taxes.

Both Lincoln and Kennedy started to issue money -- which was an important shift, and one not too popular with the banking families -- not too long before they were assassinated.

The same group of bankers worked for a very long time to get the Fed established. And their descendants are the most wealthy and powerful bankers on Earth, I think.

Edited to add: I think undoing Kennedy's executive order was one of Johnson's first acts as President. He knew which side his bread was buttered on.

[salin]

36. they keep getting warned per the spam - and then they get banned

and reappear with a version of their previous nic - rinse, lather, repeat.

I don't think they are trying to educate (if so they are dumber than boxes of rocks) - I think they are trying to be annoying, mix up the message and make the chat harder to read per their constant spamming. In short: trolling.

[lumberjack_jeff]

37. The problem isn't the fed.

It was created in 1913.

The first rule of troubleshooting is; "did I do anything to cause this problem?" If so, undo it.

Banking worked reasonably well from 1940 to 2000. What happened in 1999 to fuck it up? Gramm-Leach-Bliley happened. Undo that.

The US political system is incredibly incapable of recognizing recent mistakes. The only kinds of mistakes to which we'll admit are those made by people who died before we were born.

[RegieRocker]

38. 16 trillions dollars is chump change to you?

[lumberjack_jeff]

39. No.

Did you have a point to make?

[RegieRocker]

40. Already made it, you are unable to understand.

[lumberjack_jeff]

41. At risk of restating the obvious...

I'm the one to judge if you've made whatever point you were seeking to make.

[RegieRocker]

43. Meglomania problem?

[Art_from_Ark]

47. The banking system started falling apart as early as the 1980s

with the Savings and Loan crisis.

[lumberjack_jeff]

48. The S&L crisis was comparatively trivial, but was also due to deregulation.

It should have been a lesson for what deregulation brings.