End the Fed… and Move the Country Forward

The name "Federal Reserve System" is supposed to conjure up nice, comforting images of a safety net, of a system to safeguard the economy of the United States. In fact, its creators were adamant about not calling it a bank… because banks and bankers were feared and loathed then – as they mostly are now.

But the truth is, the Federal Reserve System (remember, it's not a bank, it's a "system") is killing this country.

And the damage control we heard from Janet Yellen yesterday just proves how screwed over everyone who lives, works, pays taxes, has a bank account, or invests in this country really is, all thanks to the Fed.

They're false prophets with a god complex – the most dangerous kind…

"The Creature from Jekyll Island"

What the world refers to as the "Federal Reserve Bank" or "America's central bank" – all while believing it's a U.S. government body – is in fact a private enterprise system, secretly designed by bankers and their pet politicians on Jekyll Island, Georgia, in 1910.

After a great deal of manipulation, the outline of the plan drawn up at J.P. Morgan's private hunt club of an island became legislation: the Federal Reserve Act.

That legislation was quietly signed into law the day before Christmas Eve in 1913 by President Woodrow Wilson – a former Princeton professor plucked from obscurity by bankers and politicians who engineered his election, in part to bring the Fed to life.

With the Federal Reserve Act, Congress ceded the creation of money to the Federal Reserve System.

The dollars in your pocket are printed by the U.S. Treasury and signed by the Secretary of the Treasury to impart the Treasury Department's legitimacy, but they are neither issued nor owned by the U.S. Treasury or the United States of America…

The dollars in your pocket are Federal Reserve Notes. It says so on the top of every bill. Read it and weep.

The Fed owns the money of this country, and by extension, it owns the country.

That's the history. Whether or not you knew that isn't as important as what you may not know now: The Fed is killing America, dooming its people to economic ruin and a particular kind of socialist Hell.

That's because, as I've said, the Fed is a government-sanctioned private central bank. It does not have our best interests as voters or taxpayers at heart, it doesn't function to support our economic well-being.

The Secret to the Fed's Limitless Power

Central banks have a singular purpose – or at least they used to. Whether they are government entities or private "banks," they have the ability to issue virtually unlimited money and credit… without having to have any capital or assets.

But they don't issue credit or cash to the public, they issue it to member banks.

You see, if private banks get into trouble and can't raise money from depositors, or issue equity, debt, or get loans from other banks to remain solvent, then they go out of business.

To prevent them from going out of business, especially when a single bank failure can trigger a panic and then rolling failures, banks turn to their central banks.

Central banks have multiple ways of injecting liquidity into troubled banks to keep them open to prevent failures, panics, recessions, and worse.

That's what they do. Central banks serve banks by bailing them out with money and credit they create… out of thin air.

That's a tremendous, almost god-like power to possess.

America's Federal Reserve System, a private central bank, has the power to bail out any bank it wants to.

That's why bankers created it, and why they needed politicians to legitimize it to make it look like it was a bona fide government body, not the private bankers' bank it is. Hence the name "Federal" as in "government," "Reserve" as in "reserve safety net," and "System" as in "it's not a bank (wink-wink)."

With all this deception and double-talk, it's no wonder we're in this mess.

How the Fed "Fed the Machine" in the Financial Crisis

All the huge volume of academic research on how the subprime crisis developed covers everything that came together to form the subprime bubble. But the only common denominator in every study is that the Fed's artificially low interest rates fed the machine.

Since the Fed has the power to control the general level of interest rates in the United States, by a few different means, it does so.

The Fed engineered artificially low rates that allowed subprime credit borrowers to get cheap mortgages for houses they couldn't otherwise afford. At the same time, those low rates forced fixed-income investors to chase higher yields, which they did by investing in riskier bonds and mortgage-backed securities. So, because nominal rates were being suppressed, the Fed had to bail out all the banks (their favored banks) that ended up becoming insolvent when everything blew up.

The insolvent banks didn't have money to lend anywhere, and the rapid contraction of credit in the financial system drove the Fed to first flush-up all the big banks to keep them from failing. Then it fed them more money via quantitative easing (QE) programs to make them profitable again, and it kept rates near the zero bound for banks so they would make enough to start lending back out into the economy.

Now, it's bad enough that the Fed can control interest rates in what's supposed to be a free market economy, but it gets much worse.

How the Fed Got Its "Other" Mandate

In 1977, Congress amended The Federal Reserve Act to state the monetary policy objectives of the Federal Reserve as: "The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy's long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long-term interest rates."

That act of Congress gave the Fed what became known as the "dual mandate," to maintain growth of the monetary aggregates (money supply) and maximize employment.

In short, the dual mandate was Congress punting to the Fed its responsibility for generating growth in the economy and jobs. If there wasn't jobs growth, from then on it would be the Fed's fault, not Congress' fault.

That abdication of Congress' responsibilities, a de facto act of treason which transferred the President's and Congress' Constitutional powers to an oligarchy of banking officers, is worse than frightening.

The dual mandate is the reason we have do-nothing Congresses, such as we have now. There's no fiscal responsibility and no fiscal policies coming out of Congress, because they gave their Constitutional duties the hot-potato treatment and foisted them off on the Fed.

And so to fix the economy and lift employment, the two-trick Fed is simply doing the only thing it can do, besides bailing out banks: It's manipulating interest rates.

Needless to say, it hasn't worked.

We'll Never Get Anywhere with the Fed

Jobs growth is suddenly slowing drastically after years of artificially low rates. What's more, the jobs that have been created are mostly low-wage, entry-level jobs – not actual career opportunities.

The economy is dangerously close to stall-speed. Again.

And now, and for the foreseeable future, markets hang on every word the Fed says. Every. Word.

Is this any way to run a country?

The only way America can get back to being that "Shining City Upon a Hill" is by burying the Federal Reserve System for good.

And to the Fed's pet politicians that take issue with that, I ask you: What have you done for your country lately?

What would you do for your country – if you didn't have the Fed to punt your responsibilities to?

I'd like to know, and so would all of America. We deserve an answer.

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Shah Gilani

About the Author

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Shah Gilani boasts a financial pedigree unlike any other. He ran his first hedge fund in 1982 from his seat on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. When options on the Standard & Poor's 100 began trading on March 11, 1983, Shah worked in "the pit" as a market maker.

He helped develop what has become known as the Volatility Index (VIX) - to this day one of the most widely used indicators worldwide. After leaving Chicago to run the futures and options division of the British banking giant Lloyd's TSB, Shah moved up to Roosevelt & Cross Inc., an old-line New York boutique firm. There he originated and ran a packaged fixed-income trading desk, and established that company's "listed" and OTC trading desks.

Shah founded a second hedge fund in 1999, which he ran until 2003.

Shah's vast network of contacts includes the biggest players on Wall Street and in international finance. These contacts give him the real story - when others only get what the investment banks want them to see.

Today, as editor of 10X Trader, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with the chance to earn ten times their money on trade after trade.

Shah is also the proud founding editor of The Money Zone, where after eight years of development and 11 years of backtesting he has found the edge over stocks, giving his members the opportunity to rake in potential double, triple, or even quadruple-digit profits weekly with just a few quick steps.

Shah is a frequent guest on CNBC, Forbes, and Marketwatch, and you can catch him every week on Fox Business's "Varney & Co."

He also writes our most talked-about publication, Wall Street Insights & Indictments, where he reveals how Wall Street's high-stakes game is really played.

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