The Federal Reserve's interest rate price-setting board, the FOMC, met last week. They will continue to set the federal funds rate at well below 1%, and plan to keep it low until the end of 2014. That's a year and half longer than they planned when they met just last month. Chairman Bernanke says they are keeping interest rates so low for so long because the economic outlook warrants it.
The fallacies in their reasoning would be amusing if they weren't so dangerous. The Fed wants to keep the price of money at essentially zero – in other words "free" – to boost the economy. But the boost they are attempting won't get here for another three years. That's not a recovery. And we've already tried this tactic. That's how we got into this mess in the first place: with interest rates artificially low for a very long time. Free money doesn't stimulate growth, as Japan's two lost decades clearly show. Artificially low interest rates only serve to punish saving, distort market signals, and cause further malinvestment. They also do nothing to address the only real solution to our economic woes: liquidation of the bad debt that hangs around the neck of the world's economy, preventing recovery. Artificially low interest rates merely ensure that we remain a debt-financed consumer economy guaranteed to end up with a weaker economy and higher prices.
What baffles me even more is that two decades after the collapse of Soviet planning and decades more since the U.S. and economists purportedly rejected the idea of price setting, we find nothing wrong with the Fed setting the price of money. We all agree it is a bad idea to have a board saying the price of wheat should be $250 a ton today, or carpenters wages should be $25 an hour until the end of 2014. But we are perfectly comfortable with having a board set the price of one half of every transaction in our economy. And our markets are supposedly free.
The Fed policies of low interest rates, Operation Twist, and rounds of quantitative easing are all attempts to keep the economy alive artificially. But the 12 FOMC participants cannot manage the economy any better than the bureaucrats of the Soviet Union. The policies haven't worked. They won't work. Real economic recovery cannot come until we liquidate the bad debt, until we eradicate the poor decisions we made over the last decade, and start with a sound foundation. It is time we acknowledge the truth of the Fed's activities: they are merely using fancy words for price setting.
Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon was correct in the 1920s when he said "liquidate everything." That's what we did in the severe depression of 1920-21, and we recovered so quickly it is never even talked about. We didn't take his advice after the 1929 crash, and ended up with the Great Depression. We are committing the same mistakes, destined to live in this Great Recession for a decade or more—it has already been four years, the Fed says it will be at least three more! It's time we start rethinking what the Fed's policies are really doing to our economy, because obviously, by their own admission, they haven't helped.
Thank You Congressman Paul.
RWJF GRANTS TO UCSF (& SF State University)
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Sep 2009 -
Aug 2010
$56,000
Assessing the efficacy of a video game to enhance cognitive health in older adults Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Sep 2009 -
Aug 2011
$286,661
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellows - Andrew Bindman, M.D. Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Sep 2009 -
Aug 2012
$165,000
Examining the role of street vendors in the after-school eating environment among elementary and middle school children in low-income neighborhoods Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine (San Francisco, CA)
Jul 2009 -
Jun 2010
$99,999
Examining health care disparities from a system perspective - Renee Hsia, M.D., M.Sc. Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Jul 2009 -
Jun 2012
$299,494
Providing research support for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative on the Future of Nursing Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
May 2009 -
Apr 2011
$99,907
Evaluating the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center system of care in meeting the health needs of youths in custody and upon discharge Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Health Policy Studies (San Francisco, CA)
Feb 2009 -
Jan 2010
$100,000
Determining the impact of parental notification of children's weight and fitness status on youth obesity and fitness at the population level Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine (San Francisco, CA)
Jan 2009 -
Dec 2009
$168,350
Measuring the impact of California's Medicaid health plan pay-for-performance on quality and disparities Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Dec 2008 -
Nov 2011
$400,000
Improving the quality of addiction treatment through policy research on how models of chronic disease prevention relate to drug and alcohol treatment Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Nov 2008 -
Oct 2009
$98,908
Adopting evidence-based practice by minority-focused substance abuse programs
Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Oct 2008 -
Sep 2009
$40,000
Measuring the impact of medical surgical acute care micro system nurse characteristics and practices on patient outcome Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing (San Francisco, CA)
Sep 2008 -
Aug 2010
$299,971
Family-centered programs to reduce risk and promote well-being for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth from ethnically diverse families Grantee: University Corporation, San Francisco State University (San Francisco, CA)
Jul 2008 -
Jun 2011
$499,993
SF State University is not UCSF. RWJF however, is RWJF.
Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program - Allison S. Bryant, M.D., M.P.H. Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Jul 2008 -
Jun 2012
$416,531
Understanding the role of providers and consumers in the engagement and retention of homeless individuals in substance abuse treatment programs Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, Institute for Health Policy Studies (San Francisco, CA)
Sep 2007 -
Aug 2010
$204,692
Examining the outcomes, preferences and costs of cesarean, vaginal and operative vaginal delivery - Aaron B. Caughey, M.D., Ph.D. Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine (San Francisco, CA)
Jul 2007 -
Jun 2010
$300,000
Identifying the characteristics of community-based trials that may influence clinic staff to adopt research-tested substance abuse interventions Grantee: University of California, San Francisco (San Francisco, CA)
Aug 2007 -
Jan 2010
$83,692
Planning for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America to stimulate debate on the socioeconomic gaps in health Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine (San Francisco, CA)
Nov 2006 -
Oct 2009
$2,509,582
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, Center for Health and Community (San Francisco, CA)
Sep 2006 -
Aug 2011
$5,494,679
Targeting of colorectal cancer screening to healthy elders - Louise C. Walter, M.D. Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, Medical Center (San Francisco, CA)
Jul 2006 -
Dec 2009
$300,000
Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program - Esteban G. Burchard, M.D. Grantee: University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine (San Francisco, CA)
Jul 2005 -
Jun 2010
$365,400
Total:
$12,288,859.00, for 2 universities
Seed Money to buy RWJF/J&J loyalty.
Hit our Risperdal tag.
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