Dan Scanlan wrote: > Is there a distinction between cartel as implementation and cartel as > framework? Wasn't the Fed set up in secret by bankers meeting on Jekle > Island. Could it be that on some ways it doesn't matter who's currently "in > charge" since the process/framework/architecture remains the same (and > controlling)?
It wasn't so secret, since the Fed's framework was ratified by Congress (which at the time was more of a "rich man's club" than it is today), notably after some amendments. That framework is what I was referring to when I said that the Fed acted like a government-sponsored (supply-restricting) cartel. As noted in a paper by the American Institute of Economic Research (and quoted in the Wikipedia): > In its final form, the Federal Reserve Act represented a compromise among three political groups. Most Republicans (and the Wall Street bankers) favored the Aldrich Plan that came out of Jekyll Island. Progressive Democrats demanded a reserve system and currency supply owned and controlled by the Government in order to counter the "money trust" and destroy the existing concentration of credit resources in Wall Street. Conservative Democrats proposed a decentralized reserve system, owned and controlled privately but free of Wall Street domination. No group got exactly what it wanted. But the Aldrich plan more nearly represented the compromise position between the two Democrat extremes, and it was closest to the final legislation passed.< In other words, the private-sector "money trust" of J.P. Morgan _et al_ was replaced by an official (public-private partnership) "trust." BTW, this was mostly (or at least partly) because Morgan _et al_ had failed to stabilize finance during the 1907 Panic. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
