Introduction
By far the most secret and least accountable operation of the federal government is not, as one might expect, the CIA, DIA, or some other super-secret intelligence agency. The CIA and other intelligence operations are under control of the Congress. They are accountable: a Congressional committee supervises these operations, controls their budgets, and is informed of their covert activities. It is true that the committee hearings and activities are closed to the public; but at least the people’s representatives in Congress insure some accountability for these secret agencies.
It is little known, however, that there is a federal agency that tops the others in secrecy by a country mile. The Federal Reserve System is accountable to no one; it has no budget; it is subject to no audit; and no Congressional committee knows of, or can truly supervise, its operations. The Federal Reserve, virtually in total control of the nation’s vital monetary system, is accountable to nobody — and this strange situation, if acknowledged at all, is invariably trumpeted as a virtue.
From The Case Against the Fed by Murray N. Rothbard
Why the President Should Read This Book
When we think of threats to our liberty, we often think of those threats that are dramatic, physically dangerous, and would make the stuff of good movies. We rarely think of bankers or Wall Street, although there are surely movies that portray these folks as villains. But counter-intuitively, the banking system of the United States, which many mistake as being a network of pro-free-market businessmen intent on making a buck, is actually one of, if not the, most highly regulated industries in the country, and has been since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913.
What this book exposes in easy to understand writing is that we have all been, and continue to be, taken advantage of by the banking system, with the complicity of our government. Our government has effectively granted a monopoly to the Federal Reserve to manage all banking activities in the United States, and while the Fed does allow a certain amount of competition and latitude, those who attempt to stray outside the boundaries are quickly brought back into line. This system inflates the money supply, which is effectively a hidden tax on the middle-class and especially the poor citizens of the United States, as well as the rest of the world. Those who profit are the uber-rich, especially those in and closest to the banking industry. Their actions produce a boom-and-bust cycle in the economy, and they make money at both ends, while the majority of us bear the cost because of our ignorance of how the game is played.
But people are waking up, and we need leaders, especially a President, who understands the threat of the Federal Reserve to our liberties, and will take concrete steps to abolish the system. If we do not phase it out, the day will come when the system will collapse upon itself, and that will be a much more painful process than if we had engaged voluntarily in dismantling it.