Gregory 1Keera GregoryDennis DunkinEng 1227 May 2014Has the Federal Reserve Outlived Its Purpose?With the everyday fluctuation of interest rates and the continuous downward spiral of the value of the United States dollar, it's not uncommon to wonder what elements contribute to these constant changes. When the government is in debt and they want to send millions of dollars to Syria, does a guard just open up a vault and deliver the money? Who sits in that special office building evaluating the stock prices on Wall Street? Is it possible for America or any of its citizens to be debt free, or will they forever remain enslaved by the one thing that makes the world go round? All of th ...view middle of the document...
Among the men present at this meeting were Henry P. Davidson, president of the JP Morgan Company, Paul M. Warburg, brother and representative to the head of the German Warburg banking consortium, and Nelson Aldrich, U.S. Senator and Chairman of the National Monetary Commission. Under the guise of a duck hunting trip, this prestigious group of men made their way by train to JP Morgan's personal island in order to meet in complete privacy. If this meeting of the wealthiest men in the world was meant to be a secret, and their plans to control our money hidden from the world, it can be easily concluded that they set out only to deceive and manipulate those who would listen. (4-5)With the controversy and upheaval caused by the flood of negative information concerning the Fed, opposition to its existence can be found in droves. These opposing opinions are louder now than they have been in the past but this in no way insinuates that these viewpoints were previously non-existent. In the early 1900s, establishing a federal bank was necessary in order conduct financial deals with European countries after funding wars like World War I led to economic crisis. Over the years, however, its role has dramatically changed. The ability to manipulate the monetary system has become a game of power. Many of our great leaders throughout history, including the brilliant men who wrote the Constitution, did not support the concept of a central banking system. The irony behind this is that five of the seven key players of the Founding Fathers are now printed on United States paper currency.The Federal Reserve Bank System is often confused as being a privately owned organization. In corporate standards, the commanding riches of a privately owned institution are split amidst shareholders. Command of the company is passed to whomever possesses the largest amount of shares. In contrast to these corporate fundamentals, the Federal Reserve System serves as the central hub to a web of smaller member banking institutions. The shares a bank can possess are based on the capital that each smaller bank controls. The controlling powers of the Fed are split among a privately elected Board of Governors that serve 14-year terms. The Federal Government does not actually possess Federal Reserve shares, yet Congress controls how it operates. Because of this, the Fed is categorized as a hybrid collaboration of corporate standards and government ideals. (Recent Developments)To the average American, the system may appear to be nothing short of complex. Information on the Fed is written in legal and financial language that makes the intense system hard to understand. Realistically, the basic fundamentals of how the Federal Reserve Bank System works is actually quite simple. Any bank is merely a financial institution providing services to those who wish to borrow, lend, save, or track their money. The Reserve is a bank on a much larger scale, serving not only the United States, but fore...
