Memories of the 28th Century

I recently learned that there still are people who believe the conspiracy theory that the Federal Reserve System is privately owned. One need only read Title 12, Chapter 3 of the U.S. Code to read about its ownership and what it is supposed to be doing. Some background is necessary for the creation of the Fed to make sense.

The Panic of 1907 was probably the most severe financial panic in U.S. history. There were multiple problems that came together to make the panic, but it became ...

The Panic of 1907 may have been the deepest financial crisis that the U.S. faced except for the Crash of 1929. There was no central bank at that time, no bank of last resort, and for that reason the financial system completely stopped for a few days. The existing clearing system in New York City had to deal with numerous bank runs, and while banks were still clearing transactions, some of the trust companies were having more trouble. Trust companies were not part of the bank clearing system. The ...

I don't bother with conspiracy theories when I can avoid them, but today I went into a coffee place and they had a question posted by a register for a get it right and save a whole ten cents. I usually know the correct answer, and I did today. The question was "Which branch is the Federal Reserve part of?" Obviously it is part of the Administrative branch. The clerk looked at the answer, and it said that is was privately owned. I was shocked that they would have that. I thought that foolishness ...

In the last half century the economy of the United States of America has gone from strong and growing to shrinking and weakening, and that was with a lot of people trying very hard to improve the economy, or saying they were. It probably would have been possible to do more damage to the economy, but it would have required a strong dictator and a very, very complacent populace, and we have only had a bunch of knuckleheads trying to run the country and a populace that believed that the politicians ...