Bernie Sanders: Bad on The Fed

By Chris Rossini

The Federal Reserve is the beating heart of the U.S. federal government. It is the financier of the military empire. Without the Fed, many of the complaints that people have with the gargantuan U.S. state would not exist. With the Fed, the government has the ability to finance every evil deed that it can dream up. The American citizen has no meaningful check on government's ability to grow itself into bankruptcy.

It's always encouraging to see politicians attack the Fed. After all, not too long ago, no one ever touched the subject. The central planners had total immunity from any public criticism, and they were free to operate in the shadows.

Well, thanks to a former Congressman from Texas, that has all changed. The Fed still operates in the shadows. That part hasn't changed. They are as secretive as any government agency can possibly be, but public criticism is now out of the genie's bottle. And the more the public learns about this terrible monopoly, the more people don't like what they hear.

Criticism of the Fed, however, are not homogeneous or uniform in any way. Yes, there's an ever-growing number of libertarians who completely understand that the Fed must have its powers completely revoked, but there are also those who are piggybacking on anti-Fed sentiment, and are looking to capitalize on it for political reasons.

Those who fall in the latter category do not show an understanding of what the Fed is, what it does, how it was formed, and the irreparable damage that it creates by its mere existence.

In this article, we'll look at how the Democratic presidential candidates view the Fed. We'll start with Hillary Clinton.

Predictably, Hillary says almost nothing about the central bank. Everyone knows of Hillary's close ties to Wall Street, so to see that she has no comment on the hands that feed her should be no surprise. In fact, it's being reported today over at EconomicPolicyJournal.com that a Federal Reserve Governor named Lael Brainard has made three separate donations to Hillary's presidential campaign.

Bottom line?

With Hillary as president, the Fed's central planners will be able to sleep soundly at night. Every crackpot idea that Clinton conjures up will have the Fed ready as the financier.

Then there's Bernie Sanders.

Sanders actually does criticize the Fed, but he seems to be doing more harm than good! By the words that Sanders uses, it's clear that he has very little understanding of the Fed. For example, a recurring tweet that you'll find on his account says the following:

The Federal Reserve has been hijacked by the very bankers it is in charge of regulating. The foxes are guarding the henhouse at the Fed.

​That right there shows that Sanders doesn't know how the Fed was founded.

The Federal Reserve is a banking cartel. It was plotted for, designed, and created by bankers. There is no "henhouse". Only foxes. And the foxes have not "hijacked" themselves.

The Fed is a creation of the bankers, and in 1913 it was granted monopoly powers by the U.S. government. The greedy U.S. government saw an opportunity in creating a central bank. The government would be able to finance whatever it wanted going forward.

It was no accident that the U.S. entered World War I shortly after the Fed's formation. That European war was stalemated and exhausted until the U.S. breathed life into it. The U.S. government would have never dared such a horrendous act had it not had the ability for the central bank to create unlimited money. 

Those fateful decisions led to the bloody 20th century. As Ron Paul has stated: "It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking."

The U.S. government can, should, and ultimately will revoke the Fed's monopoly powers. But at this moment in time, the getting is too good for both the government, the Fed, and the cornucopia of special interests that feed on printing press money.

Public opinion would have to be (and ultimately will be) extremely strong for the government to finally end this nightmare.

Sanders clearly doesn't understand any of this, and has never shown that he really wants to tackle the Fed. Bernie does not talk about sound money. I've yet to see him even whisper the word "gold".

It appears that Sanders merely wants to "manage" the central planners in a different way. But there is no way centrally plan the economy correctly. Every move is a wrong move.

Sanders, just like Hillary, needs a central bank to finance his snake oil socialist ideas. So Bernie is surely not calling for an end to the Fed. He just wants to meddle with it, similar to how he wants to meddle with everyone's wallets.

Sanders has basically grabbed onto the popular opinion that the Fed is up to no good, which is true, but he has no understanding of the problem or a solution.

A good start for Sanders would be to pick up Murray Rothbard's What Has Government Done to Our Money, and Ron Paul's End the Fed. Then, he can possibly do something constructive with what he learns.