Janet L. Yellen appears to be the favourite to replace Don Kohn, the outgoing vice-chairman at The Federal Reserve Board, an appointment that does not surprise us, however, her resume is a smorgasboard of academia without even a hint of a proper job.
This resume belongs to a person who went to school, then to university as a student and then back to university. This is the resume of an overgrown school kid who has spent a lifetime acquiring many academic certificates from educational institutions along the way and stayed in the academic world pontificating on whatever took her interest.
Now, unless you consider working for the Federal Reserve as a stint in the private sector, this lady has no experience whatsoever in working or running a real business. A mirror image of Ben Bernanke she has never mustered the courage to venture into the private sector and implement her theories for the benefit of an organization battling to survive and grow in the private sector.
Her theories remain unproven outside of the classroom and as they have remained theoretical only, there isn't the hard won experience in the real world to support and give credit to her words. Every corporation and indeed every person in the United States of America will be and are being affected everyday by the actions of The Federal Reserve Board, the governance of which is entrusted to people who have never fixed so much as a wing nut to a Ford motor car.
Helicopter Ben has said that he will run the money printing presses for as long as it takes and now he has the assistance of Janet L. Yellen to shovel the money out of the doors in the belief that more money is the solution to a debt laden nation. The political courage to suck money out of the economy just does not exist as unemployment is high and the economy is fragile and will remain so for sometime to come. Should a double dip recession appear on the horizon then the drunk will be given yet another drink, well it almost worked in Zimbabwe.
Please forgive us for being old cynics as we cannot see anything in this resume to boost our confidence. This is her resume as published by The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, if we have missed a proper job then please correct us.
Janet L. Yellen took office as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on June 14, 2004. As a member of the Federal Open Market Committee, Dr. Yellen fully participates in the meetings and brings her District's perspective to policy discussions in Washington.
Dr. Yellen is Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley where she was the Eugene E. and Catherine M. Trefethen Professor of Business and Professor of Economics and has been a faculty member since 1980.
Dr. Yellen earlier took leave from Berkeley for five years starting August 1994 when she served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System through February 1997, and then left the Fed to become Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers through August 1999. She also chaired the Economic Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development from 1997 to 1999.
Dr. Yellen became a member of The Group of 30 in September 2009. She also serves on the executive committee of the Bay Area Council and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Yellen is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has served as president of the Western Economic Association and vice president of the American Economic Association. She was also a Fellow of the Yale Corporation.
Dr. Yellen graduated summa cum laude from Brown University with a degree in economics in 1967, and received her PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1971. She received the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale in 1997, an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Brown in 1998, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Bard College in 2000.
An Assistant Professor at Harvard University from 1971 to 1976, Dr. Yellen served as an economist with the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors in 1977 and 1978, and on the faculty of the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1978 to 1980.
Dr. Yellen has written on a wide variety of macroeconomic issues, while specializing in the causes, mechanisms and implications of unemployment.
The Federal Reserve: The Greatest Scam in History (revision B)
posted on the 20th March 2009.
We first posted this article on 13th August 2007 when it appeared to us that the US Dollar along with the economy was heading into such dangerous waters that gold would be the beneficiary. At the time gold was trading at around $670/oz and it closed yesterday at $960 for a gain of $290 or 43.2%. Yesterday was the first time that we have seen the 'C' word used as the Federal Reserve announced that it would be buying back $300 billion in longer-term Treasuries in order to assist the economic recovery. This move to buy these Treasuries is regarded by many as a last resort or a sign of panic as the turmoil in the financial markets reaches a crisis point.
Gold was languishing at the $890/oz level just prior to the announcement and then within the hour it rocketed to the $950/oz level as the news of the Feds action spread. Whether it be an article on Market Watch or a mention on the BBC World Service, news travels fast these days to every corner of the planet and investors react accordingly with startling results. A new government and a New Fed, not really, just more of the same but in increasingly larger doses. Today's action will turn out to be a defining moment for the US Dollar and recorded by historians as the beginning of its demise. Unfortunately the worst is yet to come so steel yourself for a force ten storm.
On 4th October 2008 we updated our original essay with the following excerpts;
If we fast forward to time now and read any newspaper the headlines are dominated with the fire fighting actions being implemented by the Federal Reserve with bankers and politicians in tow. From these bailouts we can only conclude that the dilution of paper money will continue with the pace of dilution accelerating, resulting in massive inflation and propelling the precious metals to higher ground. If you have the time, please read this article and then take a look at what's happening around you and then find the time to question what you are doing and why you are doing it. Being too busy to organise your own affairs is a poor excuse. Just switch the television off for a couple of nights and clear your head, the way forward for you personally will become apparent.
The Federal Reserve: The Greatest Scam In History?
This is the original essay posted on 13th August 2007
The Federal Reserve was created in 1913-1914 in order to bring stability to the economy and yet almost every major crash, including the great depression, can be attributed to the Federal Reserve.
We are going to take a look at the history of the Fed and what prominent historical figures have said about the organisation.
Firstly, from 1837-1862 there was a system of national banks in the USA but then in 1913-1914 a consortium of 12 privately held banks got together and formed the Federal Reserve Bank, an entity that is not part of the US government. These banks then purchased notes from the US Mint for printing costs and lent them out through member banks charging interest.
The Federal Reserve came into being after its supporters paid for the Presidential campaign of US President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson signed the bill that transferred the US currency to twelve regional private banks Wilson regretted his decision later saying:
"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."
In 1933 President Roosevelt confiscated citizens gold and handed it to the Federal Reserve. At the very moment when Americans have needed to protect their wealth the most, the best store of wealth ever created, gold, was confiscated from American citizens and given to a un-elected conglomerate of private banks.
When the bill for the Federal Reserve was being considered, some brave politicians spoke out against its creation calling it "the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed" and Congressman Victor Murdock said, "I do not blind myself to the fact that this measure will not be effectual as a remedy for a great national evil - the concentrated control of credit."
It even appears that one of the most important and most respected figures in American history disagrees with the Federal Reserve saying, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Jefferson also said, "I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies"
"Paper is poverty... it is only the ghost of money, and not money itself."
The Federal Reserve make no secret about the scam they are running as the Boston section of the Federal Reserve Bank said:
"When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the cheque, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that cheque is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a cheque, it is creating money."
Perhaps the Fed can create money, but we strongly believe that wealth cannot be created. Wealth is simply transferred, it is not created and we challenge anyone to prove otherwise. The only time wealth was created was when the world was created, with all its resources, true wealth. So why hasn't the Federal Reserve been disbanded?
Well as the Rothschild Brothers of London said in 1863; "The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from it's profits or so dependant on it's favours, that there will be no opposition from that class."
The great Henry Ford once said "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
The problem is, very few people understand the system at all. It is not taught in schools and even some of the most prominent financial analysts and fund managers really have no idea how the system works. They tend to define inflation as rising prices when in fact inflation occurs because of the expansion of the money supply. Or even link inflation with the economy doing well, saying, "we should raise interest rates as the economy did extremely well this month and we don't want inflation getting out of hand", or words to that effect.
What all people, not just investors, need to understand is that paper money is worthless. Gold and precious metals are the real money, the real wealth that cannot be created like its paper ghost.
Gold has been telling us for sometime that all is not well so listen up and put at least a small part of your wealth into precious metals or their associated stocks.
Discipline is about to return to a screen near you.
All the best.
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