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

Well, it is time for this debate to draw to a close, and as that happens, I think it would be helpful to crystalize the issues that lie at the heart of our debate. It is time to go through the four main voting issues. 1. Fairness 2. D&D (Democracy and Debt) 3. Monetary Stability 4. Regulation and (this word will be key) Enforceability First let's look at the issue of fairness. When I included a ban of fractional reserve banking in my counter plan, I argued that it would be unfair for the Proposition to add that to the Pro plan. This was added to the proposition plan, without any explanation of why it was fair at any point in the debate. Okay, you may say, he did that in Round 2, stop winging. Well, I'm not terribly bent out of shape about it. But there is something else that Pro did that is far more unacceptable. In the final round of the debate, my opponent added a new component to the Proposition's plan -- "money creators and employees be regulated to unparalleled highly transparent auditing and oversight. I mean that making the peoples tax record public, assets public, and even an open to the public free tour of the mint and paper making areas." I've combed over Pro's statements in rounds 1 and 2, and I could not find a single mention of making tax records, assets, and (the physical spaces of) mints public. One rule that has governed every debate format I've ever participated in is that nobody can bring any new arguments to the table in the final round. You can present new evidence and analysis to back up old arguments but new arguments cannot be brought to the table as they give the other side insufficient time to respond. This is doubly true with regards to Plans that are being debated. By adding something to the plan in the last round, Pro has (unwittingly -- I don't question pro's motives) insured that throughout the debate, the Con side didn't know precisely what plan it was debating against. Now this is ultimately up to you. You may say, BirdieMachine is new to debate.org so I won't vote based on unfair conduct in this debate, or you may say that voting based on the fairness of a debate is the best way to teach new folks about our rules. But regardless of whether this is a voting issue for you, this new plank in Pro's plan NEEDS to be inadmissible. Enough about the rules already, you damned school marm! Alllllrighty then, let's move onto some other issues. The second voting issue is D&D -- Democracy and Debt. As I pointed out in my first contention which was never directly addressed (while, in fairness, one of my opponent's brand new closing arguments did partially -- and indirectly, counter it) U.S. Government control of the money supply would help democratize the monetary system and reduce the national debt. (Along with personal and business debts). Part of our Democracy/Republic must be popular sovereignty over monetary policy. As W.J. Bryan put it, the issue isn't that the government needs to get out of the banking business -- the banks need to get out of the governing business. Giving a democratically elected government the right to control it's money supply is the key to empowering the people. This democratization will not happen if we pass off control to private mints. My opponent tried to critique a government fiat money system by saying that there was a 5,000 fold increase in the National Debt since the Federal Reserve came into existence. Well, yes, when you have a private central bank that can issue as much money as it wants -- as debt that the government has to borrow, exponential growth in our national debt isn't surprising. Once the government can issue itself money, without borrowing that same money from a private Federal Reserve and from other banks, it will be able to gradually reduce the National Debt. I've pointed this out before, but if you don't believe me, then look at this IMF study as supportive evidence of my first contention: "Our analysis finds that the government is left with a much lower, in fact negative, net debt burden." http://www.telegraph.co.uk... Negative net debt burden, or in other words, we'd have a surplus. Not just a budgetary surplus for fiscal year x -- our government would not be in any debt, it may even have extra money. That isn't my claim. That's what the IMF is saying. It certainly won't happen overnight. We can't just print 19 trillion dollars and pay off all of our creditors because than we'd have hyperinflation. But over a few decades we can eliminate our national debt. I never said that we should dissolve the Federal Reserve out of existence, but I do say this: if we nationalize the Federal Reserve and ban Fractional Reserve banking, we CAN dissolve the National Debt out of existence. My opponent has offered us no reason to believe that his plan would dissolve any of our currently existing debt -- and if the government is not issuing debt free currency, than it's monetary policy would not have any effect on it's debts. I would love to elaborate about all of the positive economic implications of this surplus, but I don't want to introduce any new arguments. Connect the dots. This is a major reason to vote Con. The third voting issue is monetary stability. Throughout this debate my opponent has insisted that ANY fiat currency is bad, regardless of who controls it. And throughout this debate I have maintained that a privatized money supply -- whether fiat or gold -- is a recipe for disaster. My opponent used one example of a fiat currency which doesn't work -- a privately controlled fiat currency. I have pointed to three government controlled fiat currencies that did well. One of these government run fiat currencies was Pennsylvania's Colonial Scrip-- and Princeton economist Richard Lester found that during the fifty two year long period that the Scrip was in circulation, prices were more stable than they were during any other fifty year period in U.S. history. Now he said that in 1938, mind you, but since than we've had plenty of inflation since then so the point still stands. I have also pointed to times throughout history when gold was manipulated - by Goldsmiths in the 1660s and later by Bankers in the 1890s. The Proposition did not address any historical arguments, either pro fiat or anti gold. My opponent never furnished us with an example of a government run fiat currency that did badly. Finally, the proposition didn't address my point about the instability, chaos, and undetected counterfeiting that we'll have when multiple mints are issuing different currencies at the same time. Just look at what's happening in Zimbabwe. Finally, the fourth voting issue for you to consider in today's debate is regulation/enforceability. The first regulatory issue is that when we nationalize the Fed and ban ex bankers from running it, we remove a major conflict of interest that often gets in the way of thorough Wall Street regulation. Second, by getting rid of the Fed, we'd be getting rid of an agency with certain powers to regulate Wall Street. Pro would not only get rid of the Federal Reserve, Pro never mentioned any transfer of regulatory powers to another agency. In other words, Pro's policy would deregulate Wall Street, and that didn't work well before 2008. Even when Pro embraces 100% reserve requirements, tax/asset audits, etc., Pro never specifies who will enforce those reserve requirements, or who would audit taxes. This points to a much larger issue in Pro's plan. We don't know how it'll ever be enforced; the plan has remained so vague throughout this debate that we learned new details in the final round -- this isn't just a fairness issue, it's a feasibility issue. This debate boils down to what will work in the real world. Vote Con. That being said, thank you, BirdieMachine, for an awesome debate!