TonyWilliams

These "debates" always are short on facts, and big on hyperbole, which makes me cringe to even respond. Can you point to the constitution's specification about "only gold or silver can be the legal currency"?

You hear "unconstitutional" thrown around a lot by the crew lounge lawyers, yet only one of the three branches is tasked with determining if a law is legal... i.e., "unconstitutional"; I'm going to suggest that isn't you.

Here's a basic Wiki overview of that "private corporation" Federal Reserve Bank:

Federal Reserve is independent within government in that "its monetary policy decisions do not have to be approved by the President or anyone else in the executive or legislative branches of government." Its authority is derived from statutes enacted by the U.S. Congress and the System is subject to congressional oversight. The members of the Board of Governors, including its chairman and vice-chairman, are chosen by the President and confirmed by Congress. The government also exercises some control over the Federal Reserve by appointing and setting the salaries of the system's highest-level employees. Thus the Federal Reserve has both private and public aspects. The U.S. Government receives all of the system's annual profits, after a statutory dividend of 6% on member banks' capital investment is paid, and an account surplus is maintained. In 2010, the Federal Reserve made a profit of $82 billion and transferred $79 billion to the U.S. Treasury.

I absolutely do not want a return to 1907, or having political hacks handling my money any more than they do. There's a reason that our country adopted this system, and I don't wish to undo it. However, I recognize how little most Americans actually know or understand history, and thus, are prone to repeat the same mistakes over and over.



The Federal Reserve Bank took us off the gold standard? Hmmm.

So, what did the USA back their currency with prior to the gold standard? Or did you not know that we only had a gold standard for about 33 years of the over 233 years that we've been a country?

Again, these debates always have the same history challenged assumptions, and technically challenged predictions. I can almost predict your next move.

TonyWilliams

Flat tax sounds fair enough, but I would still have graduated rates. If the IRS is gone, what replaces it to collect the taxes for the government. The SRI? The RSI? The ABC? And that new entity will be different from IRS how?

If you have a flat tax, under what authority do you use to apply it to your income without the 17th amendment?

Abolishing the Fed Res falls into the "not a good idea" area, IMHO. What mechanism does our government use to provide the benefits that the Fed was originally created to provide?

Or do we go back to the wild west? Maybe a financial panic every 20 or 30 years?

jungle

Tony, two points.

The Fed had NEVER been audited until the 2011 Federal case required it to be audited, and there still is no required annual audit.

This country has always been in debt, a single year of a balanced budget does not change the size or scope of the public debt. The public debt which consists of both funded and unfunded liabilities now approaches an estimated 200 Trillion dollars.

The problem is that the fed has been used to expand debt well beyond our ability to pay in an unholy alliance with congress, which is the cause of the current unprecedented size of the crisis.

Reform is required, and like the EU it will be forced on us by economics rather than a political agenda.

LowSlowT2

Article 1, Sections 8 & 10. Section 8 tells us only Congress can coin & mint money, Section 10 says States can't pay debts with anything but Gold & Silver. I know you're going to say this applies only to the states, but if the Federal Gov't will only accept Gold & Silver as legal tender from the states, then it stands to reason that Gold & Silver are the de facto standards of currency.

Yep, you're right, but I can read. I've read the Constitution and I comprehend what it means to me. I've read the Federalist AND the Anti-Federalist papers, so I know the arguments the founders used and the struggles they worried about. They feared a central bank. That's what we have with the Fed Reserve. Congress cannot delegate away it's enumerated powers and they have.

Not that wikipedia is necessarily an authority on anything, but this passage can be bold/italicized in different ways to emphasize their private corporate status. I ask again, do you find them in the blue pages or the white pages?

If you're implying that I don't know history, I'll tell you that you don't know what I know or don't know. You can infer, based on your preconceptions, what you think I know, but I'd put it to you that it's going to be an inaccurate inference. The reason our country adopted the current system is simple - money, profit - as in any case, follow the money. Who benefits from the current system? Only the Fed. Corporatists & progressives at the turn of the century knew that you need to control the money to control the people. Make no mistake, money is just another form of control. If you can control the money, you can control everything. No, that's no conspiracy theory either...





History is written by the victors and the revisionists. I said I didn't necessarily advocate a return to the Gold Standard to solve any of our problems. Nor did I state that we had historically been on the gold standard. Do not put words into my keyboard.

tomgoodman

John Marshall essentially grabbed that power for the Supreme Court in "Marbury v. Madison", and the other branches let it stand. Probably just as well, or we would have the players interpreting their own rule book. In some areas, like the "Commerce Clause", that pretty much happened anyway.

Grumble

With a flat tax you could abolish all but maybe a handful of people for collection. There would be no filings, no returns, no credits. X% of your pay is what you pay, period. Think of the money saved if the IRS were downsized by 90% and their only job was just collection of a simplified system, not enforcement of a 76k page nightmare.

The 17th amendment has to do with the popular vote for Senators, and it took away the states appointing them. Once that happened they all became corporate puppets and state sovereignty was lost.

20-30 years between fiscal crisis would be nice, as it is we're averaging one per decade since the 70's.

TonyWilliams

Ok, so not abolishing the IRS, as you originally suggested. Yes, I'd love a simplified tax structure. The best we'll get is another 1986, IMHO.



Sorry, didn't look that one up, and assumed it was the power to tax income amendment. Yes, I absolutely agree with you on this. Senators should remain state functions, not bank rolled, bought and paid for, popularity contests.

TonyWilliams

Yes, that one. What if we only accepted pigs for payment from Germany for their war debts. Would we be on a pig standard?

Certainly, you and I could go round and round on this, but the constitution does NOT say that gold and silver are the standards for currency. Which is why that was changed in 1900 to a gold standard, and subsequently eliminated in 1933.



Yes, the did not want a central bank. True. Nor did they establish one, but they could have. With the powers that are enumerated, 117 years later, the congress did in fact establish the "FEDERAL" Reserve Bank. There had been earlier failed attempts at that, also.



I don't know if that's the standard I use for anything, but the facts are self evident. The Fed is both quasi government, and private.



So, it is. Reading most history as a school age boy, you'd think only white, english speaking men were the whole world.

I prefer to just stick to the facts. The constitution doesn't specify gold as our national currency. The Fed is far from strictly "private". Because guys of 117 years previous were afraid of a central bank does not make that not proper. Those same guys thought that Africans brought to the USA were 3/5 people, and were somebody's property. Ya, that's in the constitution, too.

TonyWilliams

Don't get me wrong; anything government is ripe for waste, wrong-doing, graft, brother-in-law syndrome, kick backs, etc. But my view of the current Fed (since the 1980's) has done an amazing job of balancing the insane cash flow situation our congress critters have signed off on. Similarly, the virtually expected crazy inflation has not materialized in all that time.

Having an elected, unqualified political hack (like many making headlines) would be the very LAST folks I want with their hands on this crucial function.


Yes, it's a big number. Nobody debates that. Yes, we've always had a debt. I'm not against debt, just debt so large as to impact the credit worthiness of the USA and it's ability to protect itself. That concept extends to imported oil, crucial to a world military effort.

World War 3 is always just one big F-up away. The next one will make WW2 look like a checkers match. There are lots of big players with axes to grind, and just looking for the opportunity. Being broke and foreign energy dependent impacts our readiness, and our ability to continue after the next one, if humanity does in fact survive.

The debt does not need to be paid off, but needs to be manageable, which it clearly is not currently.



We're probably going to disagree with how the Fed "caused" this. Congress, yes, I agree. Numerous presidents who were either leading the highway to debt (for both real and contrived reasons), sure, I'll go with that, too.

Like many endeavors that mankind has embarked on, they don't all end up rosy. I hope we don't end up with anything close to Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland..... but, our's could be worse.

jungle

All involved, none guilty? The very causes of the current crisis are both massive spending far beyond need or ability to pay, and massive interventions which reward failure and attack success.
The only reason high inflation has been avoided is that debt levels are so high the money never enters general circulation, but is instead a reward to failed business and crony connections.

Saying this system is working well or even adequately is to deny reality.

We are doing exactly as the EU has done and we should expect similar results in the future. There will be no need for smarmy platitudes to failure in the final stages of this mess.

It is quite clear the fed working with congress is the cause here, working together they have wrought disaster.

Finally, we must return to the Rule of Law, and by this I mean the equal application of basic law to all citizens without exception. We have become a nation built on exception rather than just law.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Equal protection...