Yes, Congress will probably make a short term hash of it, but at least in theory they can be voted out or impeached. Right now our finances are being run by a Banksters private club, allowing Congress to get their payoffs while pretending they are as outraged as the rest of us.

Re: Volcker’s tenure

QUESTION: Did you feel personally bad that your policies were throwing people out of work?

PAUL VOLCKER: Yeah. I would get asked a question a lot about, “How can you conduct a policy that appears to throw people out of work, anyway?” And my answer to that, internally and externally, was twofold. First of all, in the short run, I was convinced that the economy was going to have a bad recession anyway. That there were so many distortions and so many excesses built into the inflationary process that sooner or later, a recession – likely to be a serious recession – was going to happen.

I remember very well when I took office that there were forecasts within the Federal Reserve, [that,] without any tightening of policy, there was going to be a recession. Actually, it didn’t happen very quickly. But I also felt that in the long run, there wasn’t any question that the economy was going to operate more efficiently; productivity would be greater; you would have less instability in the future if you could manage to stabilize prices. And on that score, I think the evidence is at least consistent with that view.

QUESTION: How long had you been on the Fed before you became chairman?

PAUL VOLCKER: Well, I started out in the Federal Reserve as a young economist and spent about five years in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And then I spent some years in the Treasury and had been undersecretary of the Treasury for Monetary Affairs during an extremely interesting period, including a period when inflation really got started, which made a big impression upon me. And then I went and became president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is the most important operating arm of the Federal Reserve System, in 1976, I guess. And then went to the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board in 1979.

He was part of the FED that caused the problem back in the 70s in the first place.

I don’t see him as the savior most do since he caused a great many people to be unemployed. Comparing the situation to the present, here you have interest rates at zero and STILL have extremely hig unemployment.

So no matter who is running the FED it appears that they are only able to manipulate things to suit a few hundred gazillionaires at the top, and the hell with the rest of it..

END the FED, NOW!

good point

This is not Rome, nevertheless. You will find that what it would take to topple the empire in our case is much less than what it took Rome to do. The typical Roman was much more conditioned to putting up with cruelty, abuse and bullshit than contemporary Americans are today. Today’s American is much better informed of his possibilities and has a greater sense of entitlement and privilege than the classical Roman. He will react accordingly when the time comes for him to give up what he sees as his right.

Technological advancements in transportation afford the contemporary American many easy options not available to the Roman by which to abandon his country entirely, if necessary. You will find leaders dumbstruck as to how to pay the bills that pay for their power once they discover that they have zero tax base and no way to easily keep borrowing after many young tax-paying adults have simply disappeared from official payrolls.

The freedoms and rights granted commoners that separate the modernized, developed Western Europe from poorer, undeveloped East today can be traced to the unusual economic threat posed to European feudal lords by their own peoples, that if abused might have run away from their villages and abusive leaders to seek asylum elsewhere, leaving no one to work the land and provide the surplus. This was a powerful incentive for European nobles to cooperate with their peasants; cooperation that lead to eventual greater freedom and prosperity than enjoyed by Asian peasants living during the same period. I am certain it will again prove a powerful incentive to our own stupid leadership as well when the time comes.

Canada has a lot of land and easy immigration policies. South America has some of the most sparsely populated lands with untapped resources on the planet. When things get bad, there are still several options. We are only 300 million individuals and out of this number, our productivity depends on just a fraction of these who would describe themselves as part of our struggling middle class. It is this same fraction that has the greatest ability (education, skills, ability, perhaps some cash) to leave first and the most to lose from staying (promise of higher taxes and inflation, lower services, saturated/declining consumer market and political agenda dominated by geriatric interests, big brother government, overpriced/rigged investment assets.)

Fair warning to all you complacent plutocrats if you continue to enforce the status quo!

Real change comes at the ballot box? Not likely this year. We need a credible third party. I’m just worried who the power vacuum will be filled by.