Reblogged: Stossel's Fed Up

[Gus Van Horn blog]

John Stossel bluntly calls for an end to the Federal Reserve:

The Fed, created to shore up capitalism, has become an instrument of government economic management not so different from a socialist planning board: a tiny handful of powerful people attempt to fine-tune the entire economy. Its main mission has become continually goosing economic activity through infusions of new cash to maintain the illusion that good times will never falter.

The result isn't stability, but one economic bubble after another.

Along the way, he hurls the following timely barb:

Alan Greenspan said he tried to be obscure because he didn't want to spook markets. He called his obfuscation "Fedspeak." It's a far cry from the clarity of his language -- and principles -- when he was young and a disciple of libertarian Ayn Rand.

(I'll overlook the common, but inaccurate description of Rand's political views.)

Stossel also notes something most of his readers will not know: that Canada, lacking a central bank, did not suffer bank failures during the 1930s.

The nomination of Janet Yellen to the charimanship of the Fed practically makes this piece required reading -- and it provides an excellent reason to pass word of it along to others.

-- CAV

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