Paul Volcker, former head of the American central bank Federal Reserve, announced last Thursday at a conference of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago that the US financial system is largely insolvent and "broken". Volcker indicated that not only the banks are to blame for this situation, but also the federal regulators. During the last few years, they could have tried a lot harder to stop the investment banks from turning the global markets into a casino. The investment banks were also responsible for attracting large parts of the former core business of the commercial banks, which consequently led to major problems, as everyone could now see.
Thus, Volcker considered that the credit business generally had taken a negative path. The size of the losses from toxic assets so far hidden by banks would not be assessable anymore. Therefore it would not be hard to imagine that the present situation holds big risks for the future stability of the financial system as well as for the broader economy. He blamed the international central banks of overshooting the mark, when trying to acquire skills that were not part of their original fields of activity. Additionally, a lax monetary policy stirred up the existing problems instead of tackling them.
Volcker added that he was not sufficiently content with the new financial markets bill, since the legislation, known as Dodd-Frank, and the included Volcker rule, was strongly diluted by individual lobbies. Nowadays it was not the financial regulators, who provided the banks and lenders with rules that generally had to be observed. In fact, a major part of the market participants resented the financial authorities, since they find the regulations disruptive and bad for business. He lambasted a lack of respect that led to a refusal to obey the federal rules and to fully execute them.
Volcker described the American mortgage market as "completely broken". It would take a long time to get the problems of the housing market under control and to reinstall an economic equilibrium. This situation would weigh on the economic development for a long time, since it causes a big problem for the American consumer and has already led to huge wealth destruction.
Published by GoldMoney Copyright © 2010. All rights reserved. Written by Roman Baudzus - Contributing Writer
Michael Rivero at What Really Happened had a very interesting and well written commentary on this point.
"And the reason is simple. The entire Federal Reserve Bank System is a giant "Ponzi": or pyramid scheme.
This nation fought a war with England to free itself from the predatory banking practices of the Bank of England, enforced on the colonies by King George III's Currency Act, which mandated the use of British Pounds for all commerce. But pounds were only available as loans from the Bank of England, at interest. It took only a few years for this scheme to reduce the formerly prosperous and productive colonies down to the poverty and unemployment typical of London at the same time period.
While the state-run schools teach that the revolution was about the Stamp act and the Tea tax, it was the rage created by the enforced impoverishment of the Currency Act which fueled the revolution. Following the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers reverted back to the system which had worked so well before the Currency Act. Government issued the public currency and spent it into circulation where it was used by the public free of interest. Then the money was taxed back into the governments hands, then to be re-spent back into circulation. This is a system which has worked very well for the civil population throughout history and which for the obvious reasons, bankers loathe to the point of starting wars to prevent it!
The US has been cursed with three private central banks issuing the public currency at interest and all three brought this nation to the edge of ruin. The mechanism is simple. Because all currency is the product of a loan, the moment that first bill goes into circulation, more money is owed to the Federal Reserve banking system than is actually in existence, and the population is trapped; sold into debt-slavery by their own government, as happened to us all in 1913.
The system perpetuates only so long as an ever-larger group of new borrowers can be found to create new money to pay the interest on the old money. That is what makes it a pyramid. That is why the government and media always talk about the "growth" of the economy. "Growth" may sound like a good thing to the unenlightened, but in a debt-based economy, "growth" means "deeper in debt. And because it is a pyramid, if the economy does not grow, that is, if more new debt cannot be created to service the interest on the old debt, the pyramid collapses, which is what is happening now.
The Federal Reserve System is designed to suck the real wealth out of the nation and put it in the pockets of the bankers, and now that they have succeeded, the system is breaking down, too cash-poor to operate efficiently, just as it did in the colonies in the early 1770s. The system is broken because the bankers have all the wealth, and absent a new source of wealth to pay the bankers' interest charges and fees, the system is locking up.
Of course, it is all paper debts and make-believe obligations. The money owed to the bankers by the government never existed in the first place. It's just part fo the scam by which the bankers enslave the world, which is the real essence of banking; to hold nations and people perpetually in debt-servitude or indentured service, with the government bribed to not take action to ameliorate the situation!"
"This is the very essence of the banking industry,; to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt!" -- mp3 clip from the film "The International"