Archive for March 18th, 2009
“Helicopter” Ben Starts Printing Up a Storm
Posted by Preston Poulter in Investing and Financial Doomsday on March 18th, 2009
Just a quick note to pat myself on the back. In a prior blog I wrote:
f Roger is right, and the banks are no longer able to function as the traditional engine of inflation, then I’m sure Ben is prepared to either go around them to offer credit to consumers directly. Such a scenario could take place in a variety of ways, with the most likely being that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac start offering 4% 40 year mortgages and refinances straight to consumers. Since both of these lending institutions have now been nationalized, relatively few people would need to be involved in that decision. Fannie and Freddie create the money to give to consumers, and the Fed buys the notes. Voila, inflation.
Today, gold rallied strongly as Ben announced that the Fed:
will spend up to $300 billion over the next six months to buy long-term government bonds, a new step aimed at lifting the country out of recession by lowering rates on mortgages and other consumer debt.
At the same time, the Fed left a key short-term bank lending rate at a record low of between zero and 0.25 percent…
The Fed also said it will buy more mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to help that battered market. The central bank will buy an additional $750 billion, bringing its total purchases of these securities to $1.25 trillion. It also will boost its purchase of Fannie and Freddie debt to $200 billion. Read the rest of this entry »
Conspiracy Theories That Surround The Federal Reserve: Part III
Posted by Preston Poulter in Investing and Financial Doomsday on March 18th, 2009
In the first two parts of this series on the conspiracy theories that surround the Federal Reserve, we looked at the popular G Edward Griffin conspiracy which traced the formation of the Federal Reserve from the Jekyll Island meeting forward to present. As I laid out in both parts I and II, the Jekyll Island meeting was the culmination of the national banking power over US politics. It was literally a meeting of the nations power brokers (the “money trust”) in a smoke filled room where the future of the nation was discussed.
The Jekyll Island meeting is an easy target for conspiracy theorists. The problem lay in that they then make this rather credible event the lynch pin of a broader, all encompassing conspiracy. In Griffin’s case, the Jekyll Island meeting plays the frontman for a conspiracy of “Fabian Socialists” who were behind not only Woodrow Wilson, but everything else from the Soviet Union to the US Environmentalist movement. Griffin’s conspirators wait behind the power of the United Nations to strip away our power when we are weakest in the name of Socialism.
Griffin commits three logical fallacies: Read the rest of this entry »