AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT

Here is a great article by Charles Hugh Smith, at oftwominds, titled, The Fed Has Failed, (And Will Continue To Fail), Part I. His analysis of what is the result when the Federal Reserve electronically prints counterfeit money through their policies of quantitative easing (QE’s) and  artificially low-interest rates is spot on. He sums it up in this statement;

“The Fed….. is handing guaranteed returns to the banks and financiers while strip mining what’s left of the middle and working classes’ non-labor income, i.e. interest and savings.”

The charts he uses show that the Feds policies have worked to bolster the financial sector {wall street and banking}, while stealing from the bottom 80% of the people who hold financial assets, decreasing the total number of people actively working by 4%,  and shrinking real wages and purchasing power of the people who remain in the labor force.

Before you read the article lets first give a brief explanation of how the Fed first creates and then injects counterfeit money into the economy, and then look at the result of the Feds counterfeiting.

COUNTERFEITING: 1) THE FED SETS THE DISCOUNT RATE IT CHARGES BANKS

The Fed sets the discount rate which is the interest rate it charges banks for loans. The zero interest rate policy {ZIRP}, that has been in effect for some time now, allows a member bank to borrow electronically printed counterfeit money from the Fed at zero or near zero percent interest. They can take the money and invest it in a bond, stock or other financial instrument that yields a higher interest rate than the rate charged by the Fed. It’s not hard to find a security that yields a rate higher than zero. Banks can also loan this money to individuals, at a low-interest rate, for mortgages on home purchases. So banks either purchases interest baring securities {bonds, stocks, etc} or create their own interest baring securities {mortgages} with the counterfeit money from the Fed.

COUNTERFEITING: 2) FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING

The banks can loan out more money than they get from the Fed because we have a 10% fractional reserve banking system. What this means is the bank can loan out 10 dollars for every 1 dollar they hold in reserve. So if the bank holds 1 million dollars in reserve it can loan out 10 million dollars. It can actually counterfeit another 10 million dollars in loans on top of the 1 million the Fed counterfeited and loaned to the bank. The bank is receiving monthly payments of interest and principle on the 10 million it counterfeited and loaned out. These payments can now be held on reserve which allows the bank to create more counterfeit loanable funds.

COUNTERFEITING: 3) PURCHASING SECURITIES THROUGH QE

Quantitative Easing is a fancy name for the Fed creating more counterfeit money and purchasing government bonds and mortgage-backed securities from banks on the open market. The Fed will buy the government bonds the bank originally purchased, and it will also buy the mortgages the bank originally created. The bank can now use the new counterfeit money the Fed created to purchase these securities, hold it in reserve and create 10 times that amount in counterfeit dollars.

To sum it up, the Fed counterfeits money and loans it to banks at zero percent interest. The banks can counterfeit 10 times as much money as they hold in reserve because of our 10% fractional reserve banking rules. The Bank purchases Government bonds, and creates mortgages with these counterfeit funds. The Federal reserve purchases these Government bonds and mortgage backed securities from the banks with more counterfeit money, and this money can be increased by a factor of ten, and the whole process starts over again. Where can you sign me up for this sweet deal.

FED COUNTERFEITING MISALLOCATES SCARCE RESOURCES

The counterfeit money injected into the economy allows first receivers to purchase something without any corresponding production. It is an exchange of nothing for something. It sends false signals through the economy propping up economic activities that would never be supported in an unhampered free market. The tech bubble of 2000, the housing bubble of 08, and the current level of the stock market are all examples of bubble activities that would never have happened if the Fed had not printed counterfeit dollars. The Tech bubble of 00, and the housing bubble of 08 were created by the Feds printing and artificially low interest rates. The counterfeit money injected since 08 has stopped the fall in housing prices, and has also created the stock markets five year bull run. All economic activities that have been created and/or maintained by this counterfeit money will eventually have to be liquidated sooner, if they stop counterfeiting, or later if they continue. One way or another the economic forces trying to correct the Feds  interventions will win out.

Click on the article above and read Charles Hugh Smiths analysis of the Feds failure. The charts are very good. Here are a few excerpts.

“The Fed’s policies have been an unqualified success for financiers and an abject failure for the bottom 99.5% who have to work for a living.”

“Keeping interest rates near-zero for five years and pumping $4 trillion into the system are both completely off the scale of central bank policy in the U.S.”

“The most charitable assessment we can make of Fed policy is that the “prosperity” it created is at best, ahem, grossly concentrated in the most parasitic and politically powerful sector: finance. Why should we be surprised that the Fed, itself a servant of the banking sector, should devise policies that enrich the bankers and financiers”.

Also read, “How The Fed Has Failed America”, Part II, by Charles Hugh Smith. Here is an excerpt from this article,

“The only way to eliminate the financial parasites is to stop subsidizing their skimming and scamming, and the only way to stop subsidizing the financial parasites is to shut down the Fed.”

Related Article – Counterfeiting by the Federal Reserve, Although Legal, Still Results In Theft, by austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Let The Counterfeiting Continue! The Fed Is Stuck In Its Feedback Loop, by austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – A Tornado vs. The Fed, Which Is More Destructive? by austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Capital Consumption, aka, Eating Our Seed Corn, by austrianaddict.com.

Related Article – Thomas Woods Explains The Austrian Business Cycle Theory, at austrianaddict.com.

This entry was posted on March 18, 2014 at 1:28 am and is filed under Econ. 201. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Charles Hugh Smith, Fed Counterfeiting, Fed Failure, Fractional Reserve Banking, Government Bonds, Housing Bubble, Misallocations of Scarce Resources, Mortgage Backed Securities, Quantitative Easing, Tech Bubble, Wall Street And Banks Skimming, Zero Interest Rate Policy