The Paulson plan seems on the surface to be just what the financial system needs, but in reality is just more highjacking of our government by the corporatocracy. This is the latest (and a huge) step in the silent coup that started with Reagan.
The corporate socialists are at it again. In response to the justifiable fear of collapse of the financial industry, and thereby the economy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has prescribed sweeping change to "modernize" regulation of our financial system. What he doesn’t mention, and the corporate-controlled press hasn’t noticed (or is deliberately ignoring) is the fact that his plan will be a giant step toward further corporate control of government functions.
On the surface, the plan seems attractive in some aspects. He points out, not without basis, that the system has gotten too complex to police with our current resources. He correctly indicates that no one government agency has access to all of the information to effectively regulate this complex system. He correctly points out the current financial crisis is a result of ineffective regulation, and investment banks and other institutions have gone largely unregulated, enabling them to make unsound decisions that have precipitated this crisis.
What Mr. Paulson conveniently doesn’t mention, and so far Congress and the press haven’t noticed (or may be deliberately ignoring) is the simple fact that:
The Federal Reserve is owned and operated not by the US Government (the people) but by the large commercial banks.
Essentially, Mr. Paulson’s plan amounts to the fox guarding the hen house. Check it out: the vast majority of the American public believes that the Fed is a government agency. It is unequivocally not! Shares in each regional federal reserve bank are owned exclusively by commercial banks in the respective region. These banks are in turn owned by largely foreign interests, a fact in itself not too alarming, until one considers the influence these banks presently have on our economy, an influence that will increase exponentially with the passage of this plan.
Another common misconception is that the Fed Chair is under the executive branch of the US Government. While the Fed Chair is appointed by the President with the approval of the Senate, all candidates for Fed Chair are proposed by the regional governors of the federal reserve. In other words, the regional Fed governors choose a candidate for Fed Chair from their own group; all individuals whose primary role is to maximize profit for their share-holders, the largest commercial banks.
You may ask why is this corporate socialism? On the surface, this seems like capitalism at its worst (best). Corporate socialism is a bit different than conventional socialism: in a socialistic system, the government has ownership, takes risk, and realizes profit. In corporate socialism, ownership and profit are privatized, while risk is incurred by the government (us). The Fed currently profits from lending money to the major banks, thereby "maintaining stability in the financial system." They stabilize the system by creating credit (in our system, credit=money). In other words, they create money, and we pay for it by backing this private money with the full taxation authority of the US government (us again). In addition, for each dollar they create, current dollars are worth less. If you have any doubt, just check the current valuation of the dollar versus the Euro, Pound, Canadian Dollar, etc. We have lost 30% or more in a year, and under current conditions, that trend doesn’t show much promise of reversing any time soon.
Joe
http://butlerdemblog.blogspot.com