Topics in the News: Federal Reserve
Janet Yellen on Federal Reserve:
(Corporations Feb 4, 2021)
Investigate retail trading; ensure investors are protected
Yellen told "Good Morning America" it was critical to ensure "that our financial markets are functioning properly, efficiently and that investors are protected." Yellen convened the heads of the SEC, CFTC, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York to discuss retail trading and "whether or not the recent events warrant further action," she told ABC. "We need to understand deeply what happened before we go to action, but certainly we're looking carefully at these events."
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Source: Reuters news service on 2021 Biden Cabinet
Janet Yellen on Federal Reserve:
(Principles & Values Jan 28, 2021)
Attended high school named for America's first Treasurer
Yellen, who was the chairperson of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018, graduated as valedictorian from Fort Hamilton High School in 1963 and was elected to the school's Hall of Fame in 1993. "Fort Hamilton H.S. was named after the country's first
Treasury secretary, so how amazing is it that the class of 1963's valedictorian has now been named to that position?" said Valerie Hodgson, president of the Fort Hamilton H.S. Alumni Association.
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Source: Brooklyn Daily Eagle on 2021 Biden Cabinet
Susan Rice on Federal Reserve:
(Principles & Values Dec 21, 2020)
Father Federal Reserve governor; mother crafted Pell Grants
She spent her career in public service focused on foreign policy -- first as assistant secretary of state for Africa affairs during the Clinton administration, then as Obama's ambassador to the U.N. and, in his second term, as national security adviser.
But as a child, she was a student of domestic policy. Her father was a governor of the Federal Reserve, and her mother helped craft the Pell Grant program. Economic mobility and racial justice, she said, "are issues I was raised on."
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Source: NBC News on 2021 Biden administration
Bernie Sanders on Federal Reserve:
(Free Trade Aug 25, 2019)
Trump's actions on trade destabilizing world economy
What the president is doing is totally irrational, and it is destabilizing the entire world economy. You do not make trade policy by announcing today that you're going to raise tariffs by X-%, and the next day by Y-%, by attacking the person you
appointed as head of the Federal Reserve as an enemy of the American people, by denouncing the president of China, who last year you really loved as a great leader. This kind of instability causing very serious harm to the entire world economy.
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Source: CNN State of the Union interview for 2019 Democratic primary
Donald Trump on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Jun 23, 2019)
Economy was ready to collapse in 2016; now it's the best
Obama had somebody that kept the [Federal Reserve interest] rates very low. I had somebody that raised the rates very rapidly. Too much. He made a mistake. That's been proven.
And yet my economy is phenomenal. We have now the best economy, maybe in the history of our country. When I took over, this country, the economy was ready to collapse.
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Source: Meet the Press 2019 interview series
Howie Hawkins on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy May 19, 2019)
Socialize big banks; manage the national currency
The national currency is a vital common resource that should be managed in the public interest. We must nationalize the Federal Reserve System as a Monetary Authority in the Treasury Department. The Monetary Authority will create all national currency
(cash and electronic) free of any associated debt. New money will be credited to the account of the federal government as additional revenue to be spent into circulation in the economy in accordance with the federal budget.
Banks will be prohibited from creating new money as loans. Banks will borrow or raise money for lending from savers and investors, including the Monetary Authority. People and businesses will borrow from funds in the banks' accounts.
Socialize the big banks: The allocation of investments according to an economic plan requires a significant sector of public banks.
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Source: 2020 Presidential Campaign website HowieHawkins.us
Arvin Vohra on Federal Reserve:
(Corporations Feb 22, 2018)
End the Fed, to prevent irresponsible cash-negative business
When we eliminate legal tender laws, we allow Americans to spend money and accept payments in any form of currency they choose. This destroys the monopoly the Federal Reserve currently has, and abuses, on currency.When Americans can choose their
preferred currency, they are free to choose to store their money in a form that won't depreciate wildly whenever the government decides to spend more money. That means your savings will still mean much more years later when you go to use them.
Ending
the Federal Reserve also prevents irresponsible, cash-negative businesses from entering the market, making (fully expected) irresponsible decisions, and creating more frequent and more severe business cycles. When the Federal Reserve is not allowed to
interfere, successful business practices will prevail, business cycles will be smoother, layoffs will be massively decreased, and the economy on the whole will prosper. This means responsible business practices will drive market growth.
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Source: 2018 Maryland Senatorial campaign website VoteVohra.com
Arvin Vohra on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Dec 12, 2017)
Remove legal tender laws & stimulate the economy
When we eliminate legal tender laws, we allow Americans to spend money and accept payments in any form of currency they choose. This destroys the monopoly the Federal Reserve currently has, and abuses, on currency. When the Federal
Reserve is not allowed to interfere, successful business practices will prevail, business cycles will be smoother, layoffs will be massively decreased, and the economy on the whole will prosper. I want to make this country fiscally responsible.
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Source: 2018 Maryland Senate campaign website VoteVohra.com
Janet Yellen on Federal Reserve:
(Jobs Sep 6, 2016)
Inflation and unemployment are inversely connected
The most insidious example was the widespread currency of the "Phillips Curve", an economics diagram named after an economist from New Zealand by the name of A.W. Phillips, and drawn up in its classic form by Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow in 1960.
The Samuelson-Solow Phillips curve suggested that there was a trade off between unemployment and inflation. The more one rises, the more one falls. The idea was that federal reserve looseness will make money so cheap that businesses will expand
and hire workers, who in turn will drive up consumer prices. Inflation, in this reckoning, is the price to pay for full employment. As inflation skyrocketing in 1969, along with big jumps in unemployment, the Philli's curve somehow did not die when it
was disproven in the 70s, and it is alive and kicking in the economic analysis in the twenty-first century. It has demonstratably been part of the belief system of the federal Reserve chairs and monetary expansionists Ben Barnicle and Janet Yellen.
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Source: JFK and the Reagan Revolution, by Lawrence Kudlow, p.176-77
Donald Trump on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy May 6, 2016)
The Fed should refinance debt to reduce interest payments
Trump boasted how "I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal." When pressed, though, he said a country is different and he didn't mean to renegotiate the U.S. debt, only to "refinance" existing debt. Of course,
refinancing debt saves money only when rates go down, which raises the question of what the Fed should do with rates.Trump wants rates to remain low to prevent the dollar from appreciating, which would bring "major problems."
But another consideration, he noted, was the [interest payments on the] national debt: "What do we do with all of the money that we owe everybody when rates go up and now all of a sudden we have to borrow at two points more? One point more, even, is
devastating. It has to be handled very, very carefully." For the Fed to base interest-rate decisions on the national debt would blur the lines between monetary and fiscal policy. It's heresy by today's standards, but [was done in the 1960s].
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Source: Wall Street Journal, "Lean on the Fed?", by Greg Ip
Ted Cruz on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Nov 10, 2015)
I would not bail out Bank of America
Q: If Bank of America were on the brink, you would let it fail?CRUZ: Yes. One of the reasons we had the financial crash is throughout the 2000s, the Federal Reserve had loose money, and then in 2008, the Fed tightened the money, which caused a
cascading collapse. That's why I support getting back to rules-based monetary system not with a bunch of philosopher-kings deciding.
Q: I understand that. I just want to be clear, that millions of depositors would be on the line with that decision.
If it were to happen again, for whatever the reason, you would let it go, you would let a Bank of America go?
Q: I would not bail them out, but instead of adjusting monetary policy according to whims and getting it wrong causing booms and busts, what
the Fed should be doing is keeping our money tied to a stable level of gold & serving as a lender of last resort. If you have a run on the bank, the Fed can serve as a lender of last resort, but it's not a bailout. It is a loan at higher interest rates.
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Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Nov 10, 2015)
The Fed is destroying the value of our currency
By artificially keeping interest rates below market rate, average citizens have a tough time earning interest, have a tough time making money. They're actually talking now about negative interest. As the Federal Reserve destroys the value of the
currency, what you're finding is that, if you're poor, if you make $20,000 a year and you have three or four kids, and you're trying to get by, as your prices rise or as the value of the dollar shrinks, these are the people that are hurt the worst.
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Source: Fox Business/WSJ Second Tier debate
Ted Cruz on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Oct 28, 2015)
Audit the Fed; then end quantitative easing
The first thing we need to do is audit the Fed. I am a co-sponsor of Rand Paul's audit the Fed legislation. The second thing we need to do is bring together a bipartisan commission to look at getting back to rules- based monetary policy,
end this Star Chamber that has been engaging in this experiment of quantitative easing. The Fed should get out of the business of trying to juice our economy and focus on sound money and monetary stability, ideally tied to gold.
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Source: GOP "Your Money/Your Vote" 2015 CNBC 1st-tier debate
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Oct 28, 2015)
Audit the Fed, and prevent the Fed from lobbying against it
I would like to thank Ted for co-sponsoring my bill, audit the Fed. I think it is a huge problem that an organization as powerful as the Fed comes in, lobbies against them being audited on the Hill. I would prevent them lobbying Congress.
I don't think the Fed should be involved with lobbying. I think we should examine how the Fed has been part of the problem. You want to study income inequality, let's bring the Fed forward and talk about Fed policy and how it causes income inequality.
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Source: GOP "Your Money/Your Vote" 2015 CNBC 1st-tier debate
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Oct 28, 2015)
Interest rates are simply price of money; keep the Fed out
Let's bring the Fed forward and have them explain how they caused the housing boom and the crisis, and what they've done to make us better or worse. I think the Fed has been a great problem in our society.
What you need to do is free up interest rates. Interest rates are the price of money, and we shouldn't have price controls on the price of money.
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Source: GOP "Your Money/Your Vote" 2015 CNBC 1st-tier debate
Bernie Sanders on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Apr 30, 2015)
Break up large banks; add fees for high-risk investments
Sanders would divide large banks into smaller entities and charge a new fee for high-risk investment practices, including credit default swaps. In addition, he believes the Federal Reserve is an opaque organization which gives too much support to large
corporations. His pushed for a 2011 audit of the Fed and he would use the Fed to force banks into loaning more money to small businesses. Finally, he would ban financial industry executives from serving on the 12 regional boards of directors.
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Source: PBS News Hour "2016 Candidate Stands" series
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Apr 7, 2015)
Reform the tax code; address the national debt
- Taxes: There is absolutely no question that the burdensome US Tax Code needs to be reformed.
- Spending and Debt: As I speak to my constituents, I have found that their top concern is our national debt.
- Audit the Fed: The Federal Reserve was
supposed to be overseen by Congress. The Fed is now in every nook and cranny of banking with unprecedented regulatory powers and no Congressional oversight. The Fed should be Audited and should be placed back under the control of Congress.
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Source: 2016 presidential campaign website, RandPaul.com, "Issues"
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Feb 10, 2015)
Federal Reserve is insolvent, by private bank standards
If the Federal Reserve was a real bank, without extraordinary powers, it would be insolvent. The Fed has $4.5 trillion in liabilities and only $57 billion in equity. It is leveraged at 80:1, nearly three times greater than Lehman Brothers when it failed.
Nearly 40% of the Fed's liabilities are said to be mortgage-backed securities--the question needs to be: How many are distressed home loans?What does that mean?
It means the dollar that was once as good as gold ultimately became backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. And since the panic of 2008, your dollar is now backed by bad home loans, bad car loans, and derivatives. Is anyone comforted?
Over the past one hundred years the dollar has lost 96 percent of its value. If the Fed were forced to do, what every ordinary bank must do--take its "assets" and mark them to their current market value--many believe the Fed would be insolvent.
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Source: Article: Audit/End the Fed, by Rand Paul, on Breitbart.com
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Feb 10, 2015)
More oversight of the Fed; less of community banks
After the banking crisis of 2008, we got alarmed and we passed regulations. The only problem is, we passed regulations on the banks that weren't involved and gave more power to the bank that was involved--the Fed.
No bank in Kentucky failed during this crisis, yet Dodd-Frank pummeled our small community banks with crippling regulations. What we really needed was more oversight of the Fed, not small community banks.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and I don't agree on much, but I thought he did a great job of describing the Fed and the bank bailouts as: "A clear case of socialism for the rich; and rugged-you're-on-your-own-individualism for everyone else."
The Fed, with unlimited ability to print money, now prints that money to lobby against Congressional oversight. It is a disgrace and every citizen in the land should rise up and say: We the people are in charge and we demand an audit!
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Source: Article: Audit/End the Fed, by Rand Paul, on Breitbart.com
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Feb 10, 2015)
Audit the Fed: currently no jurisdiction to do so
Some say the Fed is already audited. Well, when the auditor came to Congress, she was asked the identity of the debt bought by the Fed. She didn't know. When pressed on the case she responded, "We do not have the jurisdiction to directly go and audit
reserve bank activities."Some worry about Fed independence. I do too. I worry about the Fed's independence from the Executive branch. The Fed is supposed to be overseen by Congress. Congress created the Fed.
The Fed is now in every nook and cranny of banking regulation since Dodd-Frank and it is a necessity that we not let the Executive branch gain unlimited power.
Any audit of the Fed should attempt to bring regulatory power
back under the control of Congress. Some worry that an audit would reveal which banks are shaky and lead to a panic. The audit doesn't occur until a year after the bill passes. When the 2011 audit occurred, no bank-runs ensued.
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Source: Article: Audit/End the Fed, by Rand Paul, on Breitbart.com
Bernie Sanders on Federal Reserve:
(Corporations Feb 10, 2015)
Bank bailout was socialism for the rich
After the banking crisis of 2008, we got alarmed and we passed regulations. The only problem is, we passed regulations on the banks that weren't involved and gave more power to the bank that was involved--the Fed.
No bank in Kentucky failed during this crisis, yet Dodd-Frank pummeled our small community banks with crippling regulations. What we really needed was more oversight of the Fed, not small community banks.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and I don't agree on much, but I thought he did a great job of describing the Fed and the bank bailouts as: "A clear case of socialism for the rich; and rugged-you're-on-your-own-individualism for everyone else."
The Fed, with unlimited ability to print money, now prints that money to lobby against Congressional oversight. It is a disgrace and every citizen in the land should rise up and say: We the people are in charge and we demand an audit!
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Source: Article: Audit/End the Fed, by Rand Paul, on Breitbart.com
Rand Paul on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Feb 7, 2015)
Is the Fed too big to be audited?
[At an Iowa event], Paul is focused on reviving his father's political base, by attacking an institution that has long frustrated the libertarian right: the Federal Reserve. Before Paul took the stage, organizers played a video featuring archival clips
of both Ron and Rand Paul delivering critiques of the central bank.Minutes later, Paul, who last month introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, drew raucous applause when he warned its policies are undermining U.S. currency. "Anybody here want
to audit the Fed?" Paul said. "Anybody feel that the Fed is out to get us? They're all over the TV! They're going to be out there saying, 'Oh, we can't audit the Fed.' What, are they too big to be audited? Too secret to be audited?"
[Remembering
his father's campaign in Iowa], Paul said chuckling, "We used to have an 'end the Fed' dunk booth over there," pointing toward a nearby sidewalk. "People threw balls at Ben Bernanke in order to get someone in the tank."
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Source: Robert Costa in Wash. Post on 2016 Presidential hopefuls
Joe Biden on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Sep 20, 2011)
As banks become profitable, start fundamental reforms
Obama began to double back, wondering what his team thought of [Federal Reserve chair] Volcker's idea. Biden, who was an old friend of Volcker's, stepped in during a White House meeting and said that the banks were strong enough to take
some medicine now, even if it wasn't fundamental change. They were making money again, gambling with depositors' funds and with implicit, or explicit, support of the taxpayer. It wasn't right. Obama nodded. Joe had said it, straight and true.
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Source: Confidence Men, by Ron Suskind, p.349-350
Bernie Sanders on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Dec 10, 2010)
Why did we bail out South Korea?
I think the American people are interested to know that the Fed bailed out the Korea Development Bank, the wholly owned, state-owned Bank of South Korea, by purchasing over $2 billion of its commercial paper. The sole purpose of the
Korea Development Bank is to finance and manage major industrial projects to enhance the national economy not of the United States of America but of South Korea. I am not against South Korea.
I wish the South Koreans all the luck in the world. But it should not be the taxpayers of the United States lending their banks' money to create jobs in South Korea.
I would suggest maybe we want to create jobs in the United States of America. At the same time, the Fed also extended over $40 billion for the Central Bank of South Korea so that it had enough money to bail out its own banks.
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Source: The Speech: A Historic Filibuster, by Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders on Federal Reserve:
(Government Reform Sep 29, 2010)
Introduced Federal Reserve Transparency Act with Ron Paul
When Fed Chair Ben Bernanke refuses to give us information about the trillions of dollars of credit that he recently passed out in the bailout process because that would be "counterproductive," he is really saying, "It's none of your business."
He may well be protected by the law, but he is in defiance of the Constitution. The courts, under today's circumstances, will never rule that the Federal Reserve Bank chairman must reveal the information that the Congress or the people seek.
One thing
I have noticed in studying the issue is that the more power the Fed has gained, the greater the secrecy they demand. Transparency is currently a hot issue in Congress because the people have awoken and have sent a message. This is not a conservative or
liberal issue; it's not a Republican or Democratic issue. It is pervasive, across the political spectrum.
I introduced a Federal Reserve audit bill the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207, which Bernie Sanders introduced in the Senate.
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Source: End the Fed, by Rep. Ron Paul, p.174-175
Barack Obama on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Sep 16, 2009)
Some wealth of the last economic boom was illusory
The Fed has one power that is unique to it alone: it enables the creation of money out of thin air. We are talking about an awesome power. It is the power to weave illusions that appear real as long as they last. That is the very core of the
Fed's power. As Pres. Obama said of the economic boom that went bust: "I think it's important to understand that some of that wealth was illusory in the first place."
Exactly. But let's also understand the source of the illusion and what to
do about it. Of course not everyone is instinctively against this illusion-weaving power, and many even welcome it. They just want to get back to the times when "everything was good" even though it was all just a mirage--a creation of the appearance
of wealth by the Fed.
Tragically, the innocent who understand little about the complexity of the monetary system suffer the most, while those who are in the know reap great profit whether the market is going up or down.
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Source: End the Fed, by Rep. Ron Paul, p. 2-3
Joe Biden on Federal Reserve:
(Budget & Economy Aug 19, 2007)
More transparency for hedge funds and private equity funds
Q: The Fed lowered the discount rate for banks to address the mortgage crisis. Should they lower rates for everyone else? A: The answer is yes. But we need more transparency, particularly with regard to hedge funds and private equity funds.
They are the ones that are causing this thing to go under. And there’s no transparency, no accountability. We don’t know how deep this problem is. I think it’s almost as deep in terms of dollars, not liability, as the savings and loan crisis.
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Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate on “This Week”
Page last updated: Mar 01, 2022
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