Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk – A weekly Column
The Federal Reserve Monopoly over Money
April 9, 2007
Recently I had the opportunity to question Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke when he appeared before the congressional Joint Economic committee. The topic that morning was the state of the American economy, and many of my colleagues raised questions about how the Fed might better “regulate” things to ease fears of an economic downturn. The tenor of my colleagues’ questions suggested that Mr. Bernanke’s job is nothing less than to run the U.S. economy, like some kind of Soviet central planner.
Certainly it’s true that Mr. Bernanke can drastically affect the economy at the drop of a hat, simply by making decisions about the money supply and interest rates. But why do members of Congress assume this is good? Why do we accept without objection that a small group of people on the Federal Reserve Board wields so much power over our economic well-being? Is centralized, monopoly control over our money even compatible with a supposedly free-market economy?
Read the full article….
Beyond Money 