The Federal Reserve should be dissolved out of existence for tyrannical Interest and Inflation

If we continue responding to each other's arguments at this rate, than I have no doubt that we'll be able to finish this debate before I leave the country. Thank you so much. First I'll address the arguments put forward by BirdieMachine, and hopefully I'll have enough space to elaborate on my own contentions. If I don't then I'll just extend my contentions, as they have not been refuted. "I've read my opponents argument and he is on my side in eliminating the Federal Reserve". I don't want to split hairs here, because we do agree on many of the problems in the status quo, but I am not in favor of eliminating the Federal Reserve. I gave no indication that I was. I want to nationalize the Federal Reserve and ban Fractional Reserve Banking. "I agree we need to end Fractional Banking. .. " Well, as I have said at greater length earlier on, adding part of my counter plan to the Props plan is unfair, it gives me less grounds for debate and it therefore makes this debate less educational. Pro did NOT even try to address the issue of fairness when Pro added a ban of FRB to the Proposition's plan. The voters can determine the fairness of this, and whether this is grounds to vote Con. Even if you deem that this is fair, I will give you many other reasons to vote Con. "We need to audit the Fed thoroughly to try and find out how much they cheated and audit the owners. .. Repossess stolen assets. " By nationalizing the Federal Reserve, all privately owned assets (in the Federal Reserve) would immediately belong to the U. S. Federal Government. In other words, repossession of stolen assets is already covered in my plan. Furthermore, once the Federal Reserve is part of the Treasury Department, Congressional oversight (and audits) will be much easier to implement. " -Through the control of Interest Rates and Inflation and Deflation the Federal Banksters know ahead of time what rates they will go to thus being able to place bets in the markets accordingly. " This is a serious problem, and it is addressed by my counter plan, which bans the appointment of ex-bankers to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and to the Chairmanship of the Fed. Insider trading will be much harder once Goldman Sachs (for instance) loses its ability to have its people placed in positions of power in the Federal Reserve. "I DO NOT trust the Government to print and control the money supply either as a Fiat currency. Fiat meaning moneys value backed by nothing. When you have a currency that is backed by nothing it allows the creators to print money to themselves. " The proposition may chose not to trust the government to control a Fiat currency, that is Pro's business. But we ought to heed history. There have been numerous times in the past when government's directly issued Fiat currencies: 1. In 1100 AD, King Henry I used tally sticks as a fiat currency. These were sticks that had notches carved into them, denoting different amounts of money. It worked quite well. . https://books.google.com... 2. In Colonial Pennsylvania, "colonial script" was issued as a government controlled fiat currency, and it worked quite well, as Benjamin Franklin and even (over the pond) Adam Smith observed. Moreover, ""The price level during the 52 years prior to the American Revolution and while Pennsylvania was on a paper standard was more stable than the American price level has been during any succeeding fifty-year period. " . https://21stcenturycicero.wordpress.com... 3. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln issued Greenbacks -- or U. S. dollar bills, as a fiat currency. There was some inflation but it was overall fairly successful. . http://www.xat.org... Scroll down to the part about Lincoln to learn more. My point is that history, which I consider to be a great laboratory of policies whose effects should be analyzed when we consider similar policies, shows that government controlled fiat currency has worked and often, quite well. "It needs to be able to be exchanged for a tangible good or rare item like Gold. " I confess that I was hoping for the opportunity to argue against the Gold Standard. Let us look at the history of gold based money systems. The manipulation of money, and the emergence of banking all began with the Goldsmiths. Goldsmiths didn't only make gold, they began to store people's gold in vaults. It was the goldsmith's idea to start lending out more gold than they had in reserve. This is how Fractional Reserve Banking began! . https://en.wikipedia.org... Scroll down to history. Then when we get back to American history, the 1896 election was about the "battle of the standards. " William Jennings Bryan and the Populists were against the prevailing Gold Standard because gold was very rare and it was easy for banks to manipulate the currency and to increase the debts of farmers and governments. Hence W. J. Bryan's prescient words, " Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of the government and that the banks should go out of the governing business. " . http://historymatters.gmu.edu... " 2) legalize private mints to issue coins". Alright, so the first problem with this is that when private entities control the money supply, the money supply can be manipulated and we still have the issues of usury, greater personal and national debt, basically all the stuff that was going on in the 1890s. Remember, even if money is based on gold or some other rare commodity, the issuer of money can, and throughout history has gotten away with, loaning out more money than it has in store. The second problem with private mints is that the decentralization of the money supply would probably lead to inflation. It's one thing if one entity is issuing money, but when we're dealing with multiple entities acting independently of each other, without coordinating their activities, the right hand won't know what the left hand is doing and we'll have financial chaos. The third issue with this is that from the 1830s to the 1860s, when many different state and commercial banks were issuing different types of currency, counterfeiting money was much easier, and it was a bigger problem. It's much easier to police counterfeiting when you're dealing with one currency than when you're dealing with five, ten, or more. For a more contemporary example look at Zimbabwe and the problems they are having with eight currencies: . http://www.bbc.com... These arguments are not gold specific. Any rare metal can be manipulated by the private mints. Remember, bankers were originally humble goldsmiths -- private mints will go the same way. My opponent's plan does not address the issue of regulation. The Federal Reserve has regulatory powers, if it is abolished and if those powers are not transferred to another entity (and my opponent's plan does not transfer those powers to another entity) then Wall Street will be less regulated, and will probably manage away to muscle it's influence into those private mints. Even if Wall Street doesn't do that, deregulating Wall Street is part of what led to the recession, and we need to remember that when we consider deregulation. I extend my three contentions, which went unaddressed by my opponent. Once again, I'd like to thank BirdieMachine for making this debate possible, and I look forward to hearing the next argument. Thanks for promptly responding in Round 2, and please do thesameagain