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here it is, in case anyone missed it.
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Sure ...
On the Georgian resort hideaway of Jekyll Island (which has some excellent golf courses, by the way), there once met a coalition of Wall Street bankers and U.S. senators. This secret 1910 meeting had a sinister purpose, the conspiracy theorists say. The bankers wanted to establish a new central bank under the direct control of New York's financial elite. Such a plan would give the Wall Street bankers near total control of the financial system and allow them to manipulate it for their personal gain.
G. Edward Griffin lays out this conspiratorial version of history in his book The Creature from Jekyll Island. His amateurish take on history is highly suspect, however. Gerry Rough, in a series of well- researched essays on U.S. banking history, reveals many historical inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and even contradictions in Griffin's book and others of its genre. Instead of reproducing Rough's work here, I offer the reader a substantially more accurate view of the events leading up to the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913. To get a proper historical perspective, the story of begins just prior to the Civil War...
The National Banking Acts of 1863 & 1864
Prior to the Civil war there were thousands of banks in operation throughout the Union, all of them chartered, that is, licensed by the state governments. Banking regulations were virtually nonexistent. The federal government had no meaningful controls on banking practices, and state regulations were spotty and poorly enforced at best. Economic historians call the era leading up to the Civil War as the 'state banking era' or the 'free banking era.'
The problems with state banking were numerous, but three were conspicuous. First, the nation had no unified currency. State banks issued their own bank notes as currency, a system which at worst invited severe bouts of counterfeiting and at best introduced additional uncertainty in the task of determining the relative value of each bank note. Second, with no mitigating influence on the issuance of bank notes, the money supply and the price level were highly unstable, introducing and perhaps causing additional volatility in the business cycle. This was due in part to the fact that bank note issuance was frequently tied to the market value of the bank's bond portfolio which they were required to have by law. Third, frequent bank runs resulted in substantial depositor losses and severe crises of confidence in the payments system.5
The National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 were attempts to assert some degree of federal control over the banking system without the formation of another central bank. The Act had three primary purposes: (1) create a system of national banks, (2) to create a uniform national currency, and (3) to create an active secondary market for Treasury securities to help finance the Civil War (for the Union’s side).5
The first provision of the Acts was to allow for the incorporation of national banks. These banks were essentially the same as state banks, except national banks received their charter from the federal government and not a state government. This arrangement gave the federal government regulatory jurisdiction over the national banks it created, whereas it asserted no control over state-chartered banks. National banks had higher capital requirements and higher reserve requirements than their state bank counterparts. To improve liquidity and safety they were restricted from making real estate loans and could not lend to any single person an amount exceeding ten percent of the bank's capital. The National Banking Acts also created under the Treasury Department the office of Comptroller of the Currency. The duties of the office were to inspect the books of the national banks to insure compliance with the above regulations, to hold Treasury securities deposited there by national banks, and, via the Bureau of Engraving, to design and print all national banknotes.5
The second goal of the National Banking Acts was to create a uniform national currency. Rather than have several hundred, or several thousand, forms of currency circulating in the states, conducting transactions could be greatly simplified if there were a uniform currency. To achieve this all national banks were required to accept at par the bank notes of other national banks. This insured that national bank notes would not suffer from the same discounting problem with which state bank notes were afflicted. In addition, all national bank notes were printed by the Comptroller of the Currency on behalf of the national banks to guarantee standardization in appearance and quality. This reduced the possibility of counterfeiting, an understandable wartime concern.5
The third goal of the Acts was to help finance the Civil War. The volume of notes which a national bank issued was based on the market value of the U.S. Treasury securities the bank held. A national bank was required to keep on deposit with the Comptroller of the Currency a sizable volume of Treasury securities. In exchange the bank received bank notes worth 90 percent, and later 100 percent, of the market value of the deposited bonds. If the bank wished to extend additional loans to generate more profits, then the bank had to increase its holdings of Treasury bonds. This provision had its roots in the Michigan Act, and it was designed to create a more active secondary market for Treasury bonds and thus lower the cost of borrowing for the federal government.5
It was the hope of Secretary of the Treasury Chase that national banks would replace state banks, and that this would create the uniform currency he desired and ease the financing of the Civil War. By 1865 there were 1,500 national banks, about 800 of which had converted from state banking charters. The remainder were new banks. However, this still meant that state bank notes were dominating the currency because most of them were discounted. Accordingly, the public hoarded the national bank notes. To reduced the proliferation of state banking and the notes it generated, Congress imposed a ten percent tax on all outstanding state bank notes. There was no corresponding tax of national bank notes. Many state banks decided to convert to national bank charters because the tax made state banking unprofitable. By 1870 there were 1,638 national banks and only 325 state banks.5
While the tax eventually eliminated the circulation of state bank notes, it did not entirely kill state banking because state banks began to use checking accounts as a substitute for bank notes. Checking accounts became so popular that by 1890 the Comptroller of the Currency estimated that only ten percent of the nation's money supply was in the form of currency. Combined with lower capital and reserve requirements, as well as the ease with which states issued banking charters, state banks again became the dominant banking form by the late 1880’s. Consequently, the improvements to safety that the national banking system offered were mitigated somewhat by the return of state banking.5
There were two major defects remaining in the banking system in the post Civil War era despite the mild success of the National Banking Acts. The first was the inelastic currency problem. The amount of currency which a national bank could have circulating was based on the market value of the Treasury securities it had deposited with the Comptroller of the Currency, not the par value of the bonds. If prices in the Treasury bond market declined substantially, then the national banks had to reduce the amount of currency they had in circulation. This could be done be refusing new loans or, in a more draconian way, by calling-in loans already outstanding. In either case, the effect on the money supply is a restrictive one. Consequently, the size of the money supply was tied more closely to the performance of the bond market rather than needs of the economy.5
Another closely related defect was the liquidity problem. Small rural banks often kept deposits at larger urban banks. The liquidity needs of the rural banks were driven by the liquidity demands of its primary customer, the farmers. In the planting season the was a high demand for currency by farmers so they could make their purchases of farming implements, whereas in harvest season there was an increase in cash deposits as farmers sold their crops. Consequently, the rural banks would take deposits from the urban banks in the spring to meet farmers’ withdrawal demands and deposit the additional liquidity in the autumn. Larger urban banks could anticipate this seasonal demand and prepare for it most of the time. However, in 1873, 1884, 1893, and 1907 this reserve pyramid precipitated a financial crisis.5
When national banks experienced a drain on their reserves as rural banks made deposit withdrawals, new reserves had to be acquired in accordance with the federal law. A national bank could do this by selling bonds and stocks, by borrowing from a clearinghouse, or by calling-in a few loans. As long as only a few national banks at a time tried to do this, liquidity was easily supplied to the needy banks. However, an attempt en masse to sell bonds or stocks caused a market crash, which in turn forced national banks to call in loans to comply with Treasury regulations. Many businesses, farmers, or households who had these loans were unable to pay on demand and were forced into bankruptcy. The recessionary vortex became apparent. Frightened by the specter of losing their deposits, in each episode the public stormed any bank rumored, true or not, to be in financial straights. Anyone unable to withdraw their deposits before the bank’s till ran dry lost their savings or later received only pennies on the dollar. Private deposit insurance was scant and unreliable. Federal deposit insurance was non-existent.5
The 1907 Banking Panic
The 1907 crisis, also called the Wall Street Panic, was especially severe. The Panic caused what was at that time the worst economic depression in the country’s history. It appears to have begun with a stock market crash brought about by a combination of a modest speculative bubble, the liquidity problem, and reserve pyramiding. Centered on New York City, the scale of the crisis reached a proportion so great that banks across the country nearly suspended all withdrawals -- a kind of self-imposed bank holiday. Several long-standing New York banks fell. The unemployment rate reached 20 percent at the peak of the crisis. Millions lost their deposits as thousands of banks collapsed. The crisis was terminated when J.P. Morgan, a man of sometimes suspicious business tactics and phenomenal wealth, personally made temporary loans to key New York banks and other financial institutions to help them weather the storm. He also made an appeal to the clergy of New York to employ their Sunday sermons to calm the public’s fears.
Morgan’s emergency injection of liquidity into the banking system undoubtedly prevented an already bad situation from getting still worse. Although private clearinghouses were able to supply adequate temporary liquidity for their members, only a small portion of banks were members of such organizations. What would happen if there were no J.P. Morgan around during the next financial crisis? Just how bad could things really get? There began to emerge both on Wall Street and in Washington a consensus for a kind of institutionalized J.P. Morgan, that is, a public institution that could provide emergency liquidity to the banking system to prevent such panics from starting. The final result of the Panic of 1907 would be the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913
Following the near catastrophic financial disaster of 1907, the movement for banking reform picked up steam among Wall Street bankers, Republicans, and eastern Democrats. However, much of the country was still distrustful of bankers and of banking in general, especially after 1907. After two decades of minority status, Democrats regained control of Congress in 1910 and were able to block several Republican attempts at reform, even though they recognized the need for some kind of currency and banking changes. In 1912 Woodrow Wilson won the Democratic party’s nomination for President, and in his populist-friendly acceptance speech he warned against the "money trusts," and advised that "a concentration of the control of credit ... may at any time become infinitely dangerous to free enterprise."3
Also in 1910, Senator Nelson Aldrich, Frank Vanderlip of National City (today know as Citibank), Henry Davison of Morgan Bank, and Paul Warburg of the Kuhn, Loeb Investment House met secretly at Jeckyll Island, a resort island off the coast of Georgia, to discuss and formulate banking reform, including plans for a form of central banking. The meeting was held in secret because the participants knew that any plan they generated would be rejected automatically in the House of Representatives if it were associated with Wall Street. Because it was secret and because it involved Wall Street, the Jekyll Island affair has always been a favorite source of conspiracy theories. However, the movement toward significant banking and monetary reform was well-known.3 It is hardly surprising that given the real possibility of substantial reform, the banking industry would want some sort of input into the nature of the reforms. The Aldrich Plan which the secret meeting produced was even defeated in the House, so even if the Jekyll Island affair was a genuine conspiracy, it clearly failed.
The Aldrich Plan called for a system of fifteen regional central banks, called National Reserve Associations, whose actions would be coordinated by a national board of commercial bankers. The Reserve Association would make emergency loans to member banks, create money to provide an elastic currency that could be exchanged equally for demand deposits, and would act as a fiscal agent for the federal government. Although it was defeated, the Aldrich Plan served as an outline for the bill that eventually was adopted. 5
The problem with the Aldrich Plan was that the regional banks would be controlled individually and nationally by bankers, a prospect that did not sit well with the populist Democratic party or with Wilson. As the debate began to take shape in the spring of 1913, Congressman Arsene Pujo provided good evidence that the nation’s credit markets were under the tight control of a handful of banks – the "money trusts" against which Wilson warned.1 Wilson and the Democrats wanted a reform measure which would decentralize control away from the money trusts.
The legislation that eventually emerged was the Federal Reserve Act, also known at the time as the Currency Bill, or the Owen-Glass Act. The bill called for a system of eight to twelve mostly autonomous regional Reserve Banks that would be owned by the banks in their region and whose actions would be coordinated by a Federal Reserve Board appointed by the President. The Board’s members originally included the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the Currency, and other officials appointed by the President to represent public interests. The proposed Federal Reserve System would therefore be privately owned, but publicly controlled. Wilson signed the bill on December 23, 1913 and the Federal Reserve System was born.6
Conspiracy theorists have long viewed the Federal Reserve Act as a means of giving control of the banking system to the money trusts, when in reality the intent and effect was to wrestle control away from them. History clearly demonstrates that in the decades prior to the Federal Reserve Act the decisions of a few large New York banks had, at times, enormous repercussions for banks throughout the country and the economy in general. Following the return to central banking, at least some measure of control was removed from them and placed with the Federal Reserve.
References:
1. Davidson, James West, Mark A. Lytle, et al, (1998), Nation of Nations, New York: McGraw-Hill.
2. Galbraith, John K. (1995), Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
3. Greider, William (1987), Secrets of the Temple, New York: Simon & Schuster.
4. Griffin, G. Edward (1995), The Creature from Jekyll Island, Appleton: American Opinion Publishing, Inc.
5. Kidwell, David S. and Richard Peterson (1997), Financial Institutions, Markets, and Money, 6th edition, Fort Worth: Dryden Press.
6. "Wilson Signs the Currency Bill," New York Times, pages 1-2, December 24, 1913.
Ok once again ...
I've explained exactly how ownership of the Fed is structured, EXACTLY how it has been audited by both congress and the GAO, and included a link to a few of the tens of hundreds of audits that have been conducted ...
http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...d=&pagenumber=1
From that thread:
While the Federal Reserve Banking system is considered an independant central bank, it's actions are audited by the GAO and specifically, the Senate banking committee has oversight over the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Advisory Council, the Federal Open Market Committee, and Federal Reserve banks and their branches should it feel that the Federal Reserve system's actions are not in line with its goals outlined by its charter.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdque...y:@@@L&summ2=m&
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The Importance of the Federal Reserve
Executive Summary
The Federal Reserve — our Central Bank — is one of the country's most powerful economic institutions. The Federal Reserve is relevant for Congress not only because the Constitution gives monetary powers to Congress but also because Congress created the Fed and, therefore, has critically important responsibilities for Federal Reserve oversight.
This paper provides a brief overview of what Members of Congress should know about the Federal Reserve. It is intended to lay the groundwork for several subsequent papers surrounding issues related to congressional oversight of Federal Reserve monetary policy and the goal of price stability.
Congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve and monetary policy is important because:
Monetary policy can dominate fiscal policy in certain circumstances.
Inflation is determined by monetary policy.
The Federal Reserve influences interest rates.
The Federal Reserve stabilizes the financial system.
This paper briefly summarizes the structure and operating procedures of the Federal Reserve and comments on the significance of congressional oversight.
The Importance of the Federal Reserve
Introduction
Although the Federal Reserve—our Central Bank (or monetary authority)—is one of the country's most powerful economic institutions, it is also one of the most misunderstood. For Congress, the Federal Reserve is relevant because (1) the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8) explicitly gives Congress the power over money and the regulation of its value and (2) this responsibility was delegated by Congress to the Federal Reserve; the Federal Reserve was created by an act of Congress. Accordingly, Congress has important responsibilities for overseeing the Federal Reserve and monetary policy.
This paper provides a brief overview of what (and why) Congress should know about the Federal Reserve. A broad-brush overview, it is intended to lay the groundwork for several subsequent papers addressing issues related to congressional oversight of Federal Reserve monetary policy and the goal of price stability.
Our Central Bank: The Federal Reserve
As the Nation's Central Bank, the Federal Reserve is granted special privileges and so assumes the responsibilities and characteristics of such a bank. It monopolizes the issuance of paper money, serves as banker for both the government and commercial banks, and acts as lender of last resort. The latter, in turn, calls for bank regulatory responsibilities. Since Federal Reserve operations work to centralize reserves (Federal Reserve notes and deposits form a large portion of bank reserves), they entail responsibility for reserve management and hence monetary policy. Two critically important macroeconomic functions of the Central Bank, therefore, are the maintenance and achievement of price and financial system stability (i.e., stable monetary policy and the provision of lender-of-last-resort services).
Why Federal Reserve Functions are Important
The importance of congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve cannot be overemphasized. These functions are important, for example, because they imply that the Federal Reserve controls and hence is responsible for the management of total spending or aggregate demand as well as inflation. In carrying out its monetary policy management (via manipulating reserves), the Federal Reserve influences interest rates—especially short-term rates—as well as foreign exchange rates and other financial market prices. And in times of financial crisis, the Federal Reserve's lender-of-last-resort function stabilizes the entire financial system. The significance of these important considerations is briefly summarized in turn.
Management of Aggregate Demand: Monetary Policy Dominates Fiscal Policy.
Most economists recognize that total spending or aggregate demand is determined more by monetary policy than by fiscal policy. In other words, if Congress passes tax or spending legislation intended to affect total spending or aggregate demand, these effects can be fully offset or outweighed by changes in monetary policy. Indeed, accurate counter-cyclical fiscal policy—altering budget deficits to manage economic activity or aggregate demand—is now seen as neither possible nor desirable. Economists no longer agree on even the direction of the economic effects of changing budget deficits,[1] yet all agree that changes in monetary policy do have predictable and potent effects on aggregate demand and economic activity.
This implies that changes in monetary policy are often a major factor in movements of the business cycle; many booms and recessions are directly related to changes in monetary policy. Conversely, stable economic activity is often the result of appropriate, stable monetary policy. For example, in recent years the Federal Reserve deserves credit for instituting a restrained, non-inflationary policy, which not only has helped to stabilize the economic cycle but has helped to stabilize most financial markets as well.
Inflation is Determined by Monetary Policy.
Federal Reserve monetary policy is also the key determinant of inflation. It is well known that, among other economic effects, inflation can adversely affect savings, distort investment decisions, and be used by government to enhance its tax revenue and reduce its real debt. Inflation works to distort the signals of the price system, the signaling mechanism of a free market economy. Partly for this reason, recent research has shown that higher inflation is associated with lower economic growth. Accordingly, the only lasting contribution monetary policy can make toward fostering long-term economic growth is to promote price stability. Consequently, there is a growing consensus among experts that price stability should be the key objective of monetary policy. Congress can, of course, mandate this objective to the Federal Reserve.
Interest Rates Are Influenced by the Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve also influences interest rates which affect key interest-rate sensitive sectors of the economy such as housing, autos, and investment. More specifically, the Federal Reserve influences interest rates by manipulating reserves. Short-term rates are more directly influenced by Federal policy because its reserve operations involve purchases and sales of short-term government securities which influence bank reserves. Nonetheless, long-term rates are also influenced by monetary policy. Among other influences, for example, long-term rates are affected by changes in inflationary expectations as well as expectations of Fed policy. Nonetheless, the only way monetary policy can sustain lower long-term rates is to promote price stability, thereby removing the influence of both inflationary expectations as well as uncertainty premiums. Certainly, Congress has reason to ensure the provision of lower long-term rates in this way.
The Federal Reserve is the Lender of Last Resort.
During financial crises, provision of lender-of-last-resort services can stabilize the financial system. The Central Bank, being the ultimate supplier of system-wide reserves, can satisfy sharp increases in reserve or liquidity demand, thereby preventing systemic liquidity shortages and stabilizing the financial system. Failure to provide this function as, for example, occurred in the Great Depression of the 1930s, can be disastrous. On the other hand, liquidity provision prevented any serious financial system fallout from the sharp 1987 stock market crash and 1989 stock market decline. The Federal Reserve (and by inference the Congress) has responsibility to ensure that lender-of-last-resort safeguards are adequate and in place in case of unforseen financial shocks.
STRUCTURE
The Federal Reserve's organizational structure is unusual, some would say even Byzantine. It is a Federal system made up of (1) a central government agency, the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., (2) 12 regional banks located in major U.S. cities, and (3) a monetary policy decision-making unit, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), composed of representatives from both the Board and banks.
The Board of Governors (BOG).
The BOG was established as a Federal agency. It is composed of seven Governors appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate to staggered 14-year terms. A Chairman (and Vice Chairman) are also appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, for four-year terms. The Board of Governors and its staff of about 1,700 are located in Washington, D.C.
Twelve Federal Reserve Banks.
Twelve Federal Reserve Banks serve as the operating arm of the Federal Reserve system; they perform a number of functions such as operating a nationwide payment system, supervising certain financial institutions, distributing the nation's currency and coin, and serving as a banker for commercial banks and the U.S. Treasury. Each bank has a President nominated by its board of directors and approved by the Board of Governors. The New York Bank is clearly "the first among equals" since it not only sits in the world's financial center but serves as the Federal Open Market Committee's operating arm, conducting open market operations and foreign exchange intervention. Congress chartered these banks and, consequently, has oversight responsibilities for them.
Federal Open Market Committee.
The FOMC, the Federal Reserve's key monetary policy decision-making unit, formally meets eight times a year in Washington, D.C.[3] It oversees open-market operations, the principal tool of monetary policy which influences short-term interest rates and determines reserve and monetary growth. It also directs foreign exchange market operations of the Federal Reserve System. The FOMC is made up of the seven Board Members and five of the 12 Reserve Bank presidents.[4] These presidents bring "grass roots" information to the meetings and, historically, have had relatively conservative voting records due in part to their insulation from political pressures. Notably, the structure described here was designed by Congress and therefore can be changed by Congress.
POLICY OPERATIONS
The Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy principally using open-market operations (purchases/sales of securities) to alter bank reserves and influence short-term interest rates, but it also can employ the discount rate and changes in reserve requirements as policy tools. In so doing, the Federal Reserve uses the Fed funds rate as its key policy instrument. Movements in this rate (relative to other rates) in turn influence a wide array of financial and economic variables with differing time lags. These movements, for example, influence financial market variables (such as other interest rates, foreign exchange rates, commodity prices, and yield spreads), monetary and credit aggregates, measures of economic and business activity, and eventually broad measures of inflation. Because of the long time lags involved between adjustments to Federal Reserve instruments and ultimate policy goals, monetary policy makers look for those variables that are both reliably influenced by Fed policy moves and in turn predictably related to subsequent movements in policy goals; i.e., they look for reliable intermediate guides to policy.
Over the years, controversies about monetary policy have often related to debates over which variables best serve as intermediate policy guides or targets. In the past, for example, Keynesian economists prescribed target variables such as unemployment or interest rates whereas monetarist economists prescribed monetary aggregates as targets. Both of these types of targets, however, have proven unreliable. Currently, the Federal Reserve has no single explicit intermediate policy target. Rather, it uses an eclectic approach, but undoubtedly has paid more attention to movements in financial market variables than previously was the case.
CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT OF MONETARY POLICY
Detailed knowledge of the intricacies and fine points of monetary policy operations, however, is not necessary for successful congressional oversight. Rather, the keys for Congress are to clearly establish a viable objective for the Federal Reserve and to ensure the Central Bank is fully accountable for achieving this goal. This can be fostered by establishing appropriate incentives for monetary policy makers as well as mandating enhanced reporting and disclosure requirements related to progress in achieving stated objectives. Oversight, therefore, should promote policy transparency which can help to promote the credibility of a given monetary policy.
Notably, congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve need not imply increased political influence on monetary policy, especially if explicit, objective policy goals such as price stability are established for the Central Bank. Such oversight can actually work to minimize political influence by ensuring Executive Branch sway over monetary policy reflecting their appointments
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etc., etc., etc.,
I can get into stocks issued by the Fed, how profits are returned to the Treasury department ... I mean where do you want to go? |
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