After Sunday's "60 Minutes" interview, there is little doubt that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is the most powerful man on the planet. President Barack Obama isn't even in the same league. To believe otherwise would be a huge miscalculation.
"We could raise interest rates in 15 minutes," said Bernanke during the interview, speaking in the "royal We." Does anyone recognize the extraordinary nature of such a comment? One man, without any congressional oversight, can in moments raise interest rates that could collapse markets around the world. Why is this allowed? How could such a statement not bring Bernanke before a congressional oversight committee immediately?
The Fed by design is supposed to be an independent central bank whose sole responsibility is to set monetary policy. The Fed is specifically restricted from fiscal policy such as tax and appropriation. Those are supposed to be exclusive functions of the legislative branch.
For the Fed chairman to give an interview is rare in and of itself. But to do so and then talk about monetary, fiscal and political issues is unprecedented. In 2008, the rubicon was crossed when Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and incoming Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner openly cooperated in "saving" the system. We have now all but eliminated the separation between bank and government.
Today we see monetary and fiscal policy controlled from the same source.
We now have an entity accountable to no one, creating money out of thin air, and a Congress that taxes this money away from the people to spend as they please, working together. If the Fed doesn't give legislators enough money, Congress simply borrows from foreigners, further burdening future generations.
Is it any wonder the business community is hesitant to invest capital or create new jobs when this level of collusion exists between the Fed and Congress?
"Give me control over the nation's currency and I can care not who makes its laws," said Baron M.A. Rothschild. He knew that a central bank that can create money would be the most powerful force on earth.
"Whoever controls the money in any country is master of all it's legislation and commerce," warned President James Garfield.
So don't get so worried about Barack Obama and what many believe to be his plans that will hurt America by accident or design. He is a small force compared to the Fed.
Are we as a country comfortable placing such immense power in the hands of one unelected man, Mr. Bernanke? One who has stated that it is to the benefit of the country that the Fed remain secret, unaudited and independent. I wonder why?
They say sunlight is the best disinfectant. I suppose that sunlight would not only disinfect the Fed but also disintegrate the money system at the same time. If the world saw that the world's money emperor had no clothes, I can only imagine how international markets would react.
The Sunday interview with the Fed chairman should have the phones ringing off the hook in every congressional office in D.C., with callers demanding that their representatives vote for Ron Paul's H.R. 1207, the "Federal Reserve Transparency Act." This bill already has 55 co-sponsors. This bill should be viewed as "emergency legislation" in light of the candid comments of the Fed chairman.
We now know the Fed lent trillions of dollars to banks, businesses (including many big donors to President Obama) and insurance companies, as well as to international banks and pension funds. It took more than two years of extreme pressure to force the Fed's disclosure of this vital information.
At the end of the interview I sat stunned, not believing what I just heard. I have always been opposed to a central bank controlling the credit of Americans. That is not what the Constitution requires. Our Fed operates more like the fifth plank of the Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It calls for: "Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly." With the Fed and Congress now so cozy, is this not what we now have?
"The privilege of creating money is not only the supreme prerogative of the Government, but is the Government's greatest creative opportunity. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest," said Abraham Lincoln. He was right. With each American struggling under thousands of dollars as his or her share of the national debt, getting a break on what it costs in interest would be wonderful.
I have no grand illusion that writing this column will bring about changes at the Fed. The men and corporations that surround the Fed are very powerful, and I doubt they would give up their power without a very violent fight, but is important that you know.
Hundreds of books and countless other writings have warned of the Fed's dangers to America. On Sunday you heard it from Fed Chairman Bernanke himself. When one man has the power to make or break a country's, or the world's, economy in 15 minutes, just how stable are we?
Maybe a better question to ask is how vulnerable are we? I just hope the trust of 310 million Americans and countless billions of people worldwide is not misplaced.