By Daniel Marans in The Huffington Post – Progressive activists and economists who want the Federal Reserve to prioritize jobs and racial justice brought their case to the central bankers’ summer meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Thursday for two days of teach-ins and protests. The activists’ immediate goal is to prevent the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates until wages rise more significantly. The two-day event, Whose Recovery: A National Convening on Inequality, Race, and the Federal Reserve, is organized by the Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy. It serves as a counter-conference to the annual Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City symposium, where Fed officials come together to discuss monetary policy — and which is currently taking place at the same resort as the Fed Up gathering.
Members and supporters of the Third World Resistance group protested Friday morning at the federal building in downtown Oakland, with more than 30 using PVC tubing, chains and U-locks to block the two main entrances. The peaceful protest drew at least 150 people and began before 7 a.m. at the main entrance to the Ronald V. Dellums Building, 1301 Clay St. and another entrance on Jefferson Street. A prayer dance was held before speakers made their presentations. The protest ended shortly after 11 a.m. without anyone arrested. Federal police stood by and observed the activity. The entrance to the courthouse portion of the building was not affected and employees and people with business at the main building were able to get in at an alternate entrance.
In August 2005, the U.S. Congress and then-President George W. Bush blessed the oil and gas industry with a game-changer: the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The Act exempted the industry from federal regulatory enforcement of theSafe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. While the piece of omnibus legislation is well-known to close observers of the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) issue — especially the “Halliburton Loophole” — lesser known is another blessing bestowed upon shale gas and tight oil drillers: near zero-percent interest ratesfor debt accrued during the capital-intensive oil and gas production process. Or put more bluntly, near-free money from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. That trend may soon come to a close, as the Federal Reserve recently announced an end to its controversial $3 trillion bond-buying program.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted 333-92 to audit the Federal Reserve, the nation’s private, central bank. The Federal Reserve Accountability and Transparency Act, bolstered by bipartisan backing, could demand more disclosures from the secretive Federal Reserve if passed in the Senate. The bill was introduced by Republican representative Paul Broun of Georgia and is a newer incarnation of former Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s 2012 Federal Reserve Transparency Act. At that time, it passed in the House with a 327-98 vote but stalled in the Senate due to Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s resistance. Though Reid supported an audit in the 1990s, by 2012 his position shifted.
When an article appears in Foreign Affairs, the mouthpiece of the policy-setting Council on Foreign Relations, recommending that the Federal Reserve do a money drop directly on the 99%, you know the central bank must be down to its last bullet. The September/October issue of Foreign Affairs features an article by Mark Blyth and Eric Lonergan titled “Print Less But Transfer More: Why Central Banks Should Give Money Directly To The People.” It’s the sort of thing normally heard only from money reformers and Social Credit enthusiasts far from the mainstream. What’s going on? The Fed, it seems, has finally run out of other ammo. It has to taper its quantitative easing program, which is eating up the Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities needed as collateral for the repo market that is the engine of the bankers’ shell game. The Fed’s Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) has also done serious collateral damage. The banks that get the money just put it in interest-bearing Federal Reserve accounts or buy foreign debt or speculate with it; and the profits go back to the 1%, who park it offshore to avoid taxes. Worse, any increase in the money supply from increased borrowing increases the overall debt burden and compounding finance costs, which are already a major constraint on economic growth.
In this video Luke Rudkowski talks to Ken Jebsen a former main stream media journalist in Germany and Lars Maehrholz a skydiver that became the main organizer of the massive Monday peace vigils in Berlin. The protests in Berlin are not a left or right movement but a social media movement against the establishment that have grown to over a 100 cities and 3 countries. They started with Lars 2 1/2 months ago and with the help of Ken fm have grown to a very large number which made the main stream media in Berlin slander and attack the movement. For those interested in the historic background: The German Monday Demonstrations (Montagsdemonstrationen) helped to bring down the repressive surveillance state GDR regime 25 years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_….
Spawning from the Worldwide Wave of Action comes a new campaign for the 99 percent. A movement aimed at concrete radical reform, the Green Rush is promoting a new economy by and for the 99 percent through monetary reform and marijuana legalization. As they “plant the seeds for a new economy,” the campaign is calling for Occupy organizers to begin organizing around specific needs. According to Occupy.com, the Green Rush calls for “nationalization of the Federal Reserve through the National Emergency Employment Defence Act (NEED)”—a bill initially proposed by Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Congressman, to make the Federal Reserve fall under the U.S. Treasury—along with the legalization of marijuana in New York. Founded by Harrison Tesoura Schultz and Lorna Shannon, dedicated anarchist activists, the Green Rush’s objective is to build a grassroots movement into a full-fledged political movement aimed to increase congressional support of the NEED Act, which sits stagnant, according to their website, Just Activism.
With U.S. inequality at its highest point since 1928 and Wall Street bonuses hitting pre-2008 levels, we look at the 100-year history of secret collusion between Washington and the financial industry. In her new book, “All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power,” financial journalist Nomi Prins explores how a small number of bankers have played critical roles in shaping a century’s worth of financial, foreign and domestic policy in the United States. Prins examines how these relationships have influenced events from the creation of the Federal Reserve, the response to the Great Depression, and the founding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Now a senior fellow at Demos, Prins is a former managing director at Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs, and previously an analyst at Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Bank.
A group of activists concerned with the continuing economic struggle of Americans held a sidewalk “conference” in front of Federal Reserve Board headquarters in Washington, DC on March 21 and 22. Their conference, called “Fed Up: The Peoples First Conference on Monetary Reform,” coincided with a European Central Bankers’ meeting to discuss international monetary policy. Occupying the sidewalk in front of the Federal Reserve, they spoke to passersby about the need to change U.S. economic policy and redistribute wealth. Fed Up delegates claim the Federal Reserve is a “black box of decision-making,” responsible for policies that enrich banks with free money at the expense of millions who are economically strapped. Their message: “We need to take back the Federal Reserve, stop bailing out Wall Street and start rebuilding America.”
Our ultimate goal is to take the ownership of the means of producing money in this country away from the private cartel of Wall Street banksters. Sovereign, debt-free currency is our demand. This isn’t a solution as much as it is a necessary first step that will create more opportunities for all of the changes we want to see. FedUp is an idea, a conversation more so than a formal organization. It is a pragmatic way of organizing around a realistic goal of monetary reform by nationalizing, or federalizing, the Federal Reserve. Our goal is no longer merely changing the conversation or urging people to quit their jobs, leave their homes to occupy the streets, or get arrested and beaten by the police. We do however recognize the value of spending time in the streets at actions, demonstrations, rallies and marches in order to help grassroots activists and organizers learn more about the Federal Reserve; and to show the public that people are organizing to create a better economy for all of us.
It was clear from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen’s first testimony to the House Financial Committee on February 11 that she will use the Fed to continue to bail out the big banks of Wall Street rather than unemployed workers, homeowners, students and the medically uninsured. We at FedUp aren’t expecting to hear anything new from her about changes to monetary policy that benefit the 99% when she speaks today before the Senate Banking Committee. We were, however, inspired by Yellen’s positive response to invitations by members of Congress to participate in town hall meetings across the country. We encourage Yellen to follow through on that promise where her predecessors did not, and speak to the people about how the Fed can bail out Main Street and demand a more just system that serves the 99% as opposed to the 1%.
Fed Up Friday is a new monthly action to illuminate the Federal Reserve, its role in the issues that effect our communities the most, and to discuss the solutions we will propose/demand throughout this campaign. The messaging for this month will be Valentine’s Day/love themed, and we will illuminate issues about unemployment/jobs. These events will be synchronized with all participating Fed Up cities across the country, providing networking opportunities for people from all corners of the political spectrum. The protests will shine a light on institutions that exercise power in complete darkness. The project was announced on Monday December 23, when FedUp100, a new nationwide coalition of activists from across the political spectrum “Illuminated The Fed” at the 12 Federal Reserve buildings accross the country. In their press release they said “Congress created the Federal Reserve one hundred years ago, and FedUp100 demands that Congress end the Federal Reserve as a private entity. We say a century is enough! The function of controlling the money supply in the United States should reside with the American people, as provided for us in the U.S. Constitution.”
Yesterday was the 100th birthday of the Federal Reserve. A private corporation that was given the power to create money in 2013. There are 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks whose stock is owned by commercial banks. Yesterday there were protests at all 12 regional banks organized under the headline ‘FedUp’ and they sought to ‘Illuminate the Fed.’ They describe yesterday as “launching a year long coast-to-coast campaign to shine light—literally, using personal flashlights, Light Brigade letters, and high-powered illuminator projections—on a private banking body that operates in darkness and secrecy.” Occupy activist Jane Smith described their purpose: “The Federal Reserve is owned entirely by Wall Street banks, so our money is issued by a private institution. Money should be created by the government as money, not interest bearing debt.“ See FedUp100.org
The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 in response to a wave of bank crises, which had hit on average every six years over a period of 80 years. The resulting economic depressions triggered a populist movement for monetary reform in the 1890s. Mary Ellen Lease, an early populist leader, said in a fiery speech that could have been written today: Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master. . . . Money rules . . . .Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The parties lie to us and the political speakers mislead us. . . . We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the foreclosure system wiped out. That was what they wanted, but the Federal Reserve Act that they got was not what the populists had fought for…What Bryan and the populists sought was a national currency issued debt-free and interest-free by the government, on the model of Lincoln’s Greenbacks. What the American people got was a money supply created by private banks as credit (or debt) lent to the government and the people at interest. Although the national money supply would be printed by the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, it would be issued by the “bankers’ bank,” the Federal Reserve. The Fed is composed of twelve branches, all of which are 100 percent owned by the banks in their districts
“The United States Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it will start drawing down (i.e. “tapering”) its multibillion-dollar quantitative easing policies in 2014. The Fed will begin tapering its $85 billion monthly purchases of Treasuries and Treasury mortgage-backed securities by $5 billion each starting in January.” 100 years ago, this December, the United States Congress created a central bank today, we know it as the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. What most people don’t know is that the bank isn’t a federal entity and candidly, it really has nothing in reserves.
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