A bill put forward by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) would do what libertarians and conservatives have long wished for: effectively end the Federal Reserve.
The National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act of 2011 would place the Federal Reserve, a private, qusai-governmental institution that controls the nation's monetary policy, under control of the U.S. Treasury. It would also implement new rules for the financial industry, in hopes of ending the worst abuses that created the 2008 financial collapse and the ensuing recession.
Listening to Kucinich speak about the Fed, one gets the sense that he's moved even closer to the position typically championed by his polar opposite in the House, arch-conservative Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), currently a candidate for the Republican nomination to the presidency.
Paul and Kucinich have both long agreed that something must be done about the Fed, formed by an act of Congress in 1913 as a way of stabilizing the banking industry. Both men have vocally supported audits of the Fed's accounts, but Kucinich has not gone as far as Paul in most of his advocacy. Until now.
"Ten million homes are in jeopardy," he explained in a recent plea for support published to YouTube. "Fourteen million people out of work. Fifty million without health care. Endless wars. The Fed creates money out of nothing, gives it to banks, banks keep it on deposit, gain interest, pay high bonuses -- fat city -- while the rest of America falls apart. The Fed creates money out of nothing for the banks. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to be stuck in a debt-based economic system? I don't think so."
"Now do you understand 'Occupy Wall Street'?" he asked.
Along those very lines, The NEED Act calls for "creation of money by private financial institutions as interest-bearing debts" to "cease once and for all." It would also block commercial banks from betting depositors' funds on risky investments like credit default swaps and derivatives, essentially restoring the wall of separation between commercial and investment banking that was toppled by repealing the Glass-Stegall Act.
"Reclaiming the power of the Federal Government to create money, and to spend or lend money into circulation as needed, eliminates the need to treat money as a Federal liability or to pay interest charges on the Nation’s money supply to financial institutions," the bill's text reads. "[It] also renders unnecessary the undue influence of private financial institutions over public policy."
"This is the fundamental issue of our times: Who creates money, who gets it, and to what end," Kucinich said. "The wealth of this nation is being accelerated to the top with the help of the Fed."
The video below is from the official YouTube account for Congressman Dennis Kucinich.
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