How the Next Fed Chair Should Transform the American Economy

In a perfect world, the next president of the United States would win by a landslide if they announced they'd nominate Sheila Bair to head up the Federal Reserve and laid out her agenda.

Unfortunately - as we've been reminded countless times during this election year - ours is far from a perfect world.

For this fantasy of mine to work, the next president would first have to reveal to the public what the Federal Reserve System really is, who really owns it, how it controls the government, how it has thoroughly screwed up the economy and destroyed free markets, and how it threatens our democracy.

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Then, he or she would explain why Sheila Bair is the right person to head up the Fed and that her agenda would be to disarm it, dismantle it, and replace it with something altogether new.

Last week, I laid out Sheila Bair's credentials and why she's the right person for the job.

Today, I'll tell you why unwinding and replacing the Fed would transform America - and how the next Fed chair can make it happen.

Let's get started...

A Shock to the System

presidencyIt would come as a shock to 99% of Americans, including most politicians, to learn that the Federal Reserve System, although enacted into law by an act of Congress in 1913, isn't a branch of government.

They'd be even more shocked to learn that the Federal Reserve, the United States' central bank, is privately owned, that its stock is 100% owned by banks.

The banking oligarchs that devised and architected the Federal Reserve System in 1910 knew they'd have to cede some semblance of control to the government for their scheme to be approved.

That supposed control by government is the president's ability to nominate the Board of Governors of the Fed and that they have to be confirmed by the Senate. That's it - that's the entire extent of the government's control over the Fed.

Scary, huh?

When you see the Fed chair appearing before the House and Senate to give testimony on the state of the economy and what they're doing about it - it's nothing more than political theater.

The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s, famously said, "Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders."

Here's What the Fed Really Does and How It's Screwed the Economy

So what does the Federal Reserve really do?

Ellen Brown, best-selling author of "Web of Debt" and "The Public Bank Solution," explains it perfectly:

The Fed's mandate was then and continues to be to keep the private banking system intact; and that means keeping intact the system's most valuable asset, a monopoly on creating the national money supply. Except for coins, every dollar in circulation is now created privately as a debt to the Federal Reserve or the banking system it heads... The Fed's website attempts to gloss over its role as chief defender and protector of this private banking club.

The Fed controls the U.S. government by controlling Congress. Not directly, mind you. But by the constituent banks that own the Fed and their officers lavishing campaign money on politicians and by their army of exorbitantly paid lobbying firms and influence on peddlers directing policy.

How has the Fed screwed up the economy and destroyed free markets?

By artificially manipulating interest rates, the Fed engineers booms and inevitable busts that follow excessive profit-making schemes foisted on the public by profiteering banks.

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Without the Fed constantly manipulating interest rates, most of the time ratcheting them down to spur bank lending and credit extension, the free market would determine the appropriate level of interest rates commensurate with economic conditions and borrowers' creditworthiness.

As a result of the Fed's gross manipulation of interest rates, the free market isn't entirely free to allocate capital and credit according to real-world risk and reward parameters.

While a history of the Fed would reveal serial ineptitude in terms of the Fed managing the economy, we only have to go back to how artificially low rates in the early 2000s spawned the subprime mortgage build-up, massive bets on mortgage-backed securities, the credit crisis, and the Great Recession.

The Fed continuing its low-to-zero interest rate policies to fix the hole its policies dug for the American economy further shackles free markets. It has bankrupted savers and retirees and anyone in the middle class or lower socioeconomic class from ever being able to retire, to the benefit of wealthy renters of financial assets, which are now in bubble territory once again.

But that's not all... it's not just the economy the Fed's screwed - it's democracy.

Why We Must Unwind the Fed

Our American democracy has been overthrown by a bunch of banking oligarchs and officers who have turned the United States into a kind of banana republic whose economy serves to enrich the oligarchs and officers that control our money supply, credit, and future.

Sheila Bair should be installed at the Fed to disarm it by immediately ending its ability to print money to manipulate interest rates.

She should be tasked with dismantling the system of control banksters have over the economy and the country. Dismantling the Fed wouldn't be hard to do, just hard to get past shareholder bankers who've dug a deep moat filled with political hacks and misinformation about the Fed's abilities and influence to protect it.

What would replace the Federal Reserve System?

That's easy.

There's a simple solution to replacing the Fed with an altogether new apparatus that serves the same functions as a central bank, without any of the manipulation or political pandering that attends central banks.

I'll tell you what that is soon. But I'd like to hear what you all think of the Fed and what you think should be done about it.

As far as my choice for the next president?

Whoever shouts out to the American electorate about the dangers of the Fed and what they're going to do about it, specifically, and under the watchful eye of Sheila Bair.

Up Next: Subzero - How Negative Interest Rates Will Finally Kill America's Free Market

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About the Author

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.

The work he did laid the foundation for what would later become the 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 Hyperdrive Portfolio, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with massive profit opportunities that result from paradigm shifts in the way we work, play, and live.

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

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