“In other words, the people ‘regulating’ the banks are the exact same people who are being ‘regulated.”
~Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Most people do not understand just how the Federal Reserve works. First – it’s a quasi private/public partnership. No one knows who owns it…seriously.
- We know that large banks have an ownership in it.
- We know who sits on the board too.
- We know that there is a guaranteed 6% dividend on all profits at the FED directly to the private owners of the bank (source).
- We know that the FED loans money at .25% currently to a whole host of large banks and investment firms including international banks which those banks then use to make tremendous profits from.
- We know that banks then take that .25% interest loan and lend the government money at 3% or more thus flipping their loan from the FED and making HUGE profits by doing nothing.
- We know that the FED doesn’t loan that money directly to “the average Joe” even though the FED guarantee is backed by the American taxpayer.
And we know that those banks which make billions by borrowing from the FED and then re-investing in risky transactions that only further impoverish the American people…are also regulating their own behavior by being on the Federal Reserve Board. And it’s time to stop the fox from watching the hen house.
Of course – Congress will not support this without an absolute bipartisan movement to push forward on this…and there is almost always a distraction built up here or there to push the movement on the wrong course. This won’t pass without absolute vehement anger among the populace and I don’t see it. You should be pissed.
From The Raw Story – article HERE:
“In my view, it is a blatant conflict of interest for Jamie Dimon, the CEO and Chairman of JP Morgan Chase, to serve on the New York Fed’s board of directors,” Sanders added. “It is also a conflict of interest when any other bank CEO sits on a Federal Reserve Bank board.”
Dimon has since faced calls for his resignation from Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D), who helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureauempowered by President Barack Obama’s Wall Street reforms. The numbers were so gobsmacking that even Warren’s opponent, Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), joined her in the criticism,urging Dimon to punish his top employees for the “self-inflicted” wound.
An earlier audit of the Fed’s secret loan programs — supported in the House by Republicans and in the Senate by Democrats — revealed that America’s central bank dispatched $16.1 trillion in secret loans and asset swaps between 2007 and 2010 to stabilize the global financial system — more than the entire U.S. gross domestic product in 2010.
You can find the bill in full HERE.
“There is a clear conflict of interest … not a perceived conflict, but a real conflict of interest when bank presidents and employees of banks sit on the very boards that regulate them and sometimes bail them out.”
~Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
Politico adds:
Under the bill sponsored by Boxer and Sanders, two of the most liberal members of the Senate, people who work for or invest in companies that can receive financial aid from the Federal Reserve would be banned from sitting on any of the Fed’s 12 boards of directors. Federal Reserve workers and board members would also be barred from owning stock in firms that the Fed oversees. The bill is also co-sponsored by Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska).
A 2011 Government Accountability Office study that Sanders requested as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill warned of “reputational risks” to the Federal Reserve system because of its affiliation with financial executives. The GAO said there were 18 past and current members of the Federal Reserve’s board tied to firms that got emergency Fed loans during the financial crisis.
You can read an analysis at the National Bureau of Economic Research breaking down how the Fed Discount Window was abused in 1992 and before. And it’s only gotten worse – analysis HERE. How the FED works below…remember – the people approving these decisions are EMPLOYED by the banks:
