Throughout the recorded history of mankind, there have been periods when certain institutions or other citidels of power became what might be called "sacred cows." Although the damage they did far exceeded the benefits, their strongly positioned defenders prevented effective challenge to their misdeeds, or at least reduced the challenge to an ineffectual whisper. Very few people, unlike the child in the wellknown fable, dared to raise their voices and point out that "the king has no clothes on."
The outstanding example of this in the United States has become the Federal Reserve Board and System ... created in 1913 during the first Administration of Woodrow Wilson. It would be interesting and instructive to trace in detail the many times since 1913 when the Fed has instituted policies so erroneous and impervious to real needs that great hurt has been done to the economy and to the American people. Before and during the Great Depression, the smaller depression of 1920-1922, and the economic stagnations and recessions since 1953, the Fed has been a main contributor to the oncoming of economic and related social disaster or lesser calamity and to their aggravation and protraction.
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The opening of Leon Keyserling's "Money, Credit and Interest Rates: Their Gross Mismanagement by the Federal Reserve System," 1980, published by the Conference on Economic Progress.The outstanding example of this in the United States has become the Federal Reserve Board and System ... created in 1913 during the first Administration of Woodrow Wilson. It would be interesting and instructive to trace in detail the many times since 1913 when the Fed has instituted policies so erroneous and impervious to real needs that great hurt has been done to the economy and to the American people. Before and during the Great Depression, the smaller depression of 1920-1922, and the economic stagnations and recessions since 1953, the Fed has been a main contributor to the oncoming of economic and related social disaster or lesser calamity and to their aggravation and protraction.
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Treatment of ... technicalities is not necessary to describe and appraise the practical consequences of the two basic things which the Fed is doing or attempting to do, which are to determine or predominantly influence the availability of money and credit and rates of interest. Indeed, the excessive focus upon ... technicalities involves recognition that the general public cannot really be well-informed about them, and all too frequently is based upon awareness that this excessive focus maintains the unchallenged authority of the "sacred cow." This leads the trusting public to believe that it must let those in authority do as they please, because only they and other experts or so-called experts can possibly understand what it is all about.
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