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What should be done with the powers of the Federal Reserve?


A wide-ranging overhaul measure seeks ambitious changes in financial regulation.The 1,100-page proposal would create an Agency for Financial Stability that would be tasked with identifying and removing systemic risks to the economy. It also would consolidate bank supervision into a single regulator--the Financial Institutions Regulatory Administration--and create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to oversee the products made available to consumers.


What power would you like to see the Federal Reserve exercise over the financial industry? Should their reach be greater to prevent future financial meltdowns? Or would that be overregulating a recovering industry which can police itself?

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    Castration, let the market run things. No more deficit spending, no more bubbles.



    Whatever happens it seems only prudent not to allow the people who got us into this mess tell us how to get out of it!


  • yeah, like beating the tar out of us through the use of inflation.

    Here's an analogy. Suppose Brock Lesnar walked up to you and punched you so hard you fell to the ground and passed out. Medics come and they state "go ahead, Mr. Lesnar, keep punching the victim until they revive."

    Same thing here - Excess monetary inflation leads to credit bubbles and busts. So what's their solution and what are they stating? MORE excess monetary inflation to get us out of this mess.


  • Federal Reserve needs to continue to retain its powers. Politicians have a strong desire to limit Feds powers for political reasons. The desire to limit the Federal Reserves powers is nothing more than an effort to enable politicians to gain more control. The Fed needs to retain its powers and remain an independent body. We cannot let politicians succeed in making this power grab. It would be devastating to our country.



      Thomas. What do you think money is? Is there any more to know about it than every person's opinion of what money is? Like everyone else, you are free to decide what money is worth. I'd say your opinion of what money is is as good as anyone's, and that if you're willing to give it, you're paying more for money, contributing more to the standard of living, than any central banker. Inasmuch as nobody at the Federal Reserve can say what a dollar is, is there any other power at issue here than the power of counterfeiting? I say abolish the Federal Reserve, make the dollar gold, end the counterfeiting. Imagine the world since 1913, when the authorization to counterfeit began ("elastic currency"), without the counterfeiting - no world wars, no Great Depression, no Communism??? The only way to create money is to earn it.


      • My argument is not about money. If Dodd is successful in limiting the power of the Federal Reserve then economic policy will be in the hands of the politicians. That is a bad thing. All controlled economies fail. All controlled economies begin when politicians gain control of economic policy. The Federal Reserve is an independent body. It needs to retain its independence. It cannot be allowed to be controlled by politicians. That is the core of the issue with respect to Dodd & other politicians' desire to limit the power of the Federal Reserve. It's a bad thing when politicians are allowed to influence economic policy.


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