The Federal Reserve Should Be Abolished

http://nesara.org... The Fed was clearly ruled as an independent agency but the Pro failed to mention other facts about the case. Even though it was ruled to not be a government agency, the Fed is "..... a separate corporation owned by commercial banks in its region. The stockholding commercial banks elect 2/3rds of each Bank's 9 member board of directors. The remaining 3 directors are appointed by the Federal Reserve Board. The Board regulates the Reserve Banks, but direct supervision and control of each Bank is exercised by its board of directors." The Fed is not privately owned by malicious filthy rich bankers liek the Pro is trying to suggest The Fed carries out a federal action even though it is not a federal agency, so it is very constitutional even though it is designed to exercise a power given to Congress. Prior to the Fed's creation, panics in the 1800's caused hundreds of banks to close at a time during every panic, creating a very unstable economy. After the Fed was created the number of bank failures that occurred from panics dropped significantly compared to years before, the Pro only used the example of the Great Depression to try to prove me wrong. http://www.thefreemanonline.org... http://www.federalreserveeducation.org... If the Fed thought their loans were necessary to prevent the worsening of a devastating depression then who are we to say otherwise? If anyone knows anything about financial institutions it sure as hell wouldnt be us young adults or any congressmen, it would be the people who have worked in the financial system for a long long time and run perhaps the largest financial system in the United States. You claim that their actions were dishonest in your opinion, but that is just your opinion now isnt it. "The Fed is what creates the monetary policy, i.e. interest rates and amount of money in circulation. [3]This isn't Congress's job at all." Congress has the power to coin money and determine its value, the Fed does this for them because it is their job assigned to them by Congress. The chart you failed to mention in your debate but is listed instead in your comments does not provide concrete evidence that an increase in interest rates has triggered a financial recession, if you look at the site here http://www.libertyforlife.com... You can see it is easily biased and if you look at the years 1958, 1967, 1973, 1984, 1987, 1992, 1999, and 2004 you can see that raises in interest rates did not trigger a recession. In fact in some instances on the graph the interest rates FALL right before a recession occurs. You can see here how there are many cases where interest races have risen and a recession has not occurred. http://www.google.com... The Con is trying to argue how the Fed was the sole cause of the Great Depression which is a glorified lie if Ive ever seen one. The Fed played a role in being unable to avert the crisis (the Fed at the time was barely 25 years old), but there are many other causes of the Great Depression, 1) Debt inflation 2) Bad investments from banks that lost people their savings when the loans failed 3) Rampant speculation and investments into stocks that were very unstable and dangerous investments 4) Increase mass production of almost all goods causing costs to fall, this was great for huge companies but for farmers who had to now increase their harvests year after year to keep up it was a death sentence 5) Environmental disasters such as the dust bowls and droughts in the mid west that destroyed prarie life for millions of people. 6) A breakdown in international trade and exchange 7) war loans given to countries damaged from WWI that were not repaid which cost banks loaning that money billions There are many other reasons for the cause and worsening of the great depression, but the Fed was not the sole or largest cause as the Pro suggests "My opponent contends that scrapping the Federal Reserve would leave some programs unfunded. Perhaps this would be a good thing: if Congress can't borrow money created from nothing, they would reduce wasteful spending on programs we don't need" The Pro has admitted that the elimination of the Fed would leave government programs unfunded, which i believe falls under the category of "damage to the economy" The Pro suggests that we should disregard this by simply saying how "it would reduce wasteful spending" It is not guaranteed to reduce spending, it could just as easily force the government to borrow even MORE money and would add that to the already inflated national debt, which would do more harm to our economy, our credit, our budget, etc.