Quotes & Sayings About Federal Reserve

The drum-fire of propaganda that the Fed is manning the ramparts against the menace of inflation brought about by others is nothing less than a deceptive shell game. The culprit solely responsible for inflation, the Federal Reserve, is continually engaged in raising a hue-and-cry about 'inflation,' for which virtually everyone else in society seems to be responsible. What we are seeing is the old ploy by the robber who starts shouting 'Stop, thief!' and runs down the street pointing ahead at others. — Murray Rothbard

So: if the chronic inflation undergone by Americans, and in almost every other country, is caused by the continuing creation of new money, and if in each country its governmental "Central Bank" (in the United States, the Federal Reserve) is the sole monopoly source and creator of all money, who then is responsible for the blight of inflation? Who except the very institution that is solely empowered to create money, that is, the Fed (and the Bank of England, and the Bank of Italy, and other central banks) itself? — Murray Rothbard

After the 1929 crash, the Federal Reserve mistakenly focused its policies on preserving the gold value of the dollar rather than on stabilizing the domestic economy. — Ben Bernanke

Faith is the black person's federal reserve system. — Hattie McDaniel

The Obama administration's attempted short-term fixes, even with unprecedented monetary easing by the Federal Reserve, produced average GDP growth of just 2.2% over the past three years, and the consensus outlook appears no better for the year ahead. — Glenn Hubbard

The reason inflation was brought down to manageable levels, by the time of Ronald Reagan's re-election, was directly attributable to Jimmy Carter's very courageous act, hiring a Federal Reserve chair, with the charge to induce a recession. That recession was probably the reason he didn't win a second term. — Rick Perlstein

Achieving price stability is not only important in itself, it is also central to attaining the Federal Reserve's other mandate objectives of maximum sustainable employment and moderate long-term interest rates. — Ben Bernanke

Our world isn't about ideology anymore. It's about complexity. We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate willpower to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power. On the other hand, movements like the Tea Party more than anything else reflect a widespread longing for simpler times and simple solutions - just throw the U.S. Constitution at the whole mess and everything will be jake. For immigration, build a big fence. Abolish the Federal Reserve, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Education. At times the overt longing for simple answers that you get from Tea Party leaders is so earnest and touching, it almost makes you forget how insane most of them are. — Matt Taibbi

Can social progress be made without government?
It's like saying 'can happiness be achieved without the initiation of violence? Can romance be achieved without rape? Can profitability be achieved without theft? Can economic growth be achieved without the mass indebted enslavement and counterfeiting of the federal reserve?'. — Stefan Molyneux

sold to the public on false pretenses, high officials confessing to ordering torture in violation of treaty and domestic law, and an economic meltdown even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan acknowledges involved massive fraud - and no one has been prosecuted, no one has gone to prison, and Americans continue to dutifully cast their votes for the Democratic/Republican duopoly responsible for these disasters. — Barry Eisler

The reason most people don't express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It's what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them. — David Icke

There's nothing the people love more than a Federal Reserve joke. — Adam McKay

If Congress wanted to intervene with the Federal Reserve, well, we created the Federal Reserve. We could uncreate it. But would you want Congress regulating the money supply? We'd have drowned in inflation, or gone bankrupt, decades ago. — Jim Cooper

If the federal government is an addict, then the Federal Reserve System is its enabler. — Thomas E. Woods Jr.

In 1977, when I started my first job at the Federal Reserve Board as a staff economist in the Division of International Finance, it was an article of faith in central banking that secrecy about monetary policy decisions was the best policy: Central banks, as a rule, did not discuss these decisions, let alone their future policy intentions. — Janet Yellen

If somebody had said to me in June or July of 1987, 'We'd like you to become chairman of the Federal Reserve, but you're never allowed to discuss any economics after you leave,' I'd have said, 'Forget it.' What do they want me to do? Become an anthropologist?' — Alan Greenspan

Transparency concerning the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy is desirable because better public understanding enhances the effectiveness of policy. More important, however, is that transparent communications reflect the Federal Reserve's commitment to accountability within our democratic system of government. — Janet Yellen

The Federal Reserve, like other central banks, wields powerful tools; democratic accountability requires that the public be able to see how and for what purposes those tools are being used. — Ben Bernanke

Millions of Americans were duped by the federal government and the Federal Reserve into buying homes they could not afford and failed to count the cost. When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, they could not keep up the monthly mortgage payments and defaulted. — Mark Skousen

Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce. — James A. Garfield President Of The United States

There is no entity in the world that controls our lives more than the Federal Reserve System — Harry Reid

The president has very little effect on the economy. If you want to put blame or credit, the main person who influences the business cycle is the head of the Federal Reserve Bank. — Robert Fogel

Food and energy account for a significant portion of household budgets, so the Federal Reserve's inflation objective is defined in terms of the overall change in consumer prices. — Janet Yellen

More intriguingly, in poll after poll, when Americans are asked what public institutions they most respect, three bodies are always at the top of their list: the Supreme Court, the armed forces, and the Federal Reserve System. All three have one thing in common: they are insulated from the public pressures and operate undemocratically. It would seem that Americans admire these institutions, preciselly because they lead rather than follow. — Fareed Zakaria

Under the federal reserve act, panics are scientifically created. The present panic is the first scientifically created one, worked out as we figured, a mathematical equation. — Charles Lindbergh

The Federal Reserve, the Treasury, all the regulator agencies - if there's a problem of the financial mechanism in society, the only one to fix it is government. They've got a legitimate role. — Dick Cheney

There is a European Central Bank, of course, established and it has the structure similar to the Federal Reserve system, not precisely the same but similar. — Robert C. Solomon

The reason I am so negative about the Federal Reserve's policies is that they only target core inflation and argue that they can't identify bubbles, but when each bubble bursts, they flood the system with liquidity that brings about unintended consequences. — Marc Faber

The American people have no idea they are paying the bill. They know that someone is stealing their hubcaps, but they think it is the greedy businessman who raises prices or the selfish laborer who demands higher wages or the unworthy farmer who demands too much for his crop or the wealthy foreigner who bids up our prices. They do not realize that these groups also are victimized by a monetary system which is constantly being eroded in value by and through the Federal Reserve System. — G. Edward Griffin

Actions have consequences. The consequences of wealth confiscation by the Federal-Reserve mechanism are now upon us. — Anonymous

As soon as Mr. Roosevelt took office, the Federal Reserve began to buy government securities at the rate of ten million dollars a week for 10 weeks, and created one hundred million dollars in new [checkbook] currency, which alleviated the critical famine of money and credit, and the factories started hiring people again. — Eustace Mullins

The Federal Reserve is no more federal than Federal Express, — Michael Ruppert

The job of the Federal Reserve is "to know when to remove the punch bowl at the party." Under Alan Greenspan's leadership its motto became "let's all get drunk and see what happens." It is now the morning after and the world will be dealing with Greenspan's hangover for the next several decades. — Said Elias Dawlabani

They should let my son be Federal Reserve chairman. At least he'll play with his toys and not ruin the economy. — Peter D. Schiff

The tenth amendment said the federal government is supposed to only have powers that were explicitly given in the Constitution. I think the federal government's gone way beyond that. The Constitution never said that you could have a Federal Reserve that would have $2.8 trillion in assets. We've gotten out of control. — David Malpass

The Federal Reserve ... is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up. — William McChesney Martin

Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve. It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class. — Ron Paul

The politicians looked after the mandarins. The mandarins looked after the central bankers and the regulators. (The governor of the Central Bank was paid more in 2008 than the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, as was the chief executive of the Financial Regulator.) The Central Bankers looked after the bankers. The bankers looked after IBEC. And IBEC looked after the government. The circle of oligarchs was watertight. — Shane Ross

A new generation of avaricious and egocentric Americans, in the thrall of anti-industrial ideologies, shuns the productive adventures of creation to pursue the comfort and security of the welfare state, abetted by the discount windows at the Federal Reserve, guarantees for "green jobs" and solar enterprises, the triple-A assurances of Fannie and Freddie, and the bonanzas with which we reward litigation against the productive. — George Gilder

The Federal Reserve ranks among the most transparent central banks. We publish a summary of our balance sheet every week. Our financial statements are audited annually by an outside auditor and made public. Every security we hold is listed on the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. — Janet Yellen

There's been a coup, have you heard? It's the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They're the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries ... And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve ... And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They're in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators ... We need to take out the CIA. — Ron Paul

The Fed's policy choices can always be debated, but the quality and commitment of the Federal Reserve as a public institution is second to none, and I am proud to lead it. — Ben Bernanke

According to the latest wealth data of the Federal Reserve Board in the Flow of Funds, the total net worth of households is around $56.8 trillion.27 The wealth of the top 1 percent is therefore around $20.6 trillion. With roughly 113 million households, the average wealth of the richest 1 percent is roughly $18.2 million per household. — Jeffrey D. Sachs

Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan Chase should not be permitted to charge consumers 25- to 30-percent interest on their credit cards, especially while these banks received over $4 trillion in loans from the Federal Reserve. — Bernie Sanders

The Federal Reserve is the overlord of the money supply. If these two are not steering in the same direction, they can either neutralize each other or have the economy lurching in all directions. This is not a rational system for setting economic policy. It has given us trouble in the past, as the text will establish, and will inevitably in the future. — Wright Patman

Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve (1979-87): The worst financial investment I ever made was spending so much time in government. The most satisfying personal investment I ever made was spending so much time in government, frustrating as it could be. — Anonymous

Republicans have been running on tax-cut proposals since the era of Harding and Coolidge. Tax-rate reductions and simplifications are urgently needed. But again, there is no mention of the key problems of a global economy in decline - of the acceptance by economic elites of inevitable and irremediable stagnation. We have not faced the fact that the Federal Reserve's capacity to command growth is a god that has failed. — George Gilder

The formation of our beliefs is fraught with superstitions - even today (I might say, especially today). Just as one day some primitive tribesman scratched his nose, saw rain falling, and developed an elaborate method of scratching his nose to bring on the much-needed rain, we link economic prosperity to some rate cut by the Federal Reserve Board, or the success of a company with the appointment of the new president at the helm. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Federal Reserve the privately owned U.S. central bank definitely caused The Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by one third from 1929 to 1933. — Milton Friedman

For the same reason a disease cannot be cured by more of the germ that caused it, the inflation and debt accumulation of the Obama years will not inflate our way out of it. — Ron Paul

Fletcher Von Pein was one of the twelve founders of the Omega Agency. He was also a powerful banker and a majority shareholder in the US Federal Reserve which, despite its misleading name, had zero government ownership and was actually a private corporation owned by the global elite. — James Morcan

The myth is that if housing prices go up, Americans will be richer. What banks - and behind them, the Federal Reserve - really want is for new buyers to be able to borrow enough money to buy the houses from mortgage defaulters, and thus save the banks from suffering from more mortgage defaults. — Michael Hudson

The Federal Reserve's job is to do the right thing, to take the long-run interest of the economy to heart, and that sometimes means being unpopular. But we have to do the right thing. — Ben Bernanke

We believe that the Federal Reserve has to carry on with a progressive increase in interest rates as a consequence of the American economy. — Rodrigo Rato

Musicians burn through more cash than the Federal Reserve. — Shawn Amos

The first task of the Federal Reserve system would be to finance the World War. The European nations were already bankrupt, because they had maintained large standing armies for almost fifty years, a situation created by their own central banks, and therefore they could not finance a war. A central bank always imposes a tremendous burden on the nation for "rearmament" and "defense", in order to create inextinguishable debt, simultaneously creating a military dictatorship and enslaving the people to pay the "interest" on the debt which the bankers have artificially created. — Eustace Mullins

The greatest threat facing America today
is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government,
marked by shameless deficit spending and
Federal Reserve currency devaluation.
It is this one-two punch -
Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow,
and the Fed printing money to make up the difference -
that threatens to impoverish us by further
destroying the value of our dollars. — Ron Paul

If the fiscal cliff occurs, I don't think the Federal Reserve has the tools to offset that event. — Ben Bernanke

Any money the government spends must be taxed, borrowed or conjured out of thin air by the Federal Reserve, and that will reduce sound private investment. Obama has no real wealth to inject into the economy. He can only move around existing money while inflation robs us of purchasing power. Meanwhile, private investors who might have produced a better engine, battery, computer, cancer treatment or other wealth-creating and life-enhancing innovations hold back for fear that big government will undermine productive efforts. — John Stossel

There are a number of institutions globally where the Federal Reserve typically leads the U.S. effort to work with financial regulators from other countries, and we try to, to the extent possible, establish international standards for how - the amount of capital a bank should hold, for example, or how much. — Ben Bernanke

The Federal Reserve System is a legal private monopoly of the money supply operated for the benefit of the few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public interest. — Anonymous

Before Volcker's speech, bonds had been conservative investments, into which investors put their savings when they didn't fancy a gamble in the stock market. After Volcker's speech, bonds became objects of speculation, a means of creating wealth rather than merely storing it. — Michael Lewis

The Federal Reserve Act as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency. I do not like to think that any law can be passed that will make it possible to submerge the gold standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency. — Henry Cabot Lodge

Unlike the days of the gold standard, it is impossible for the Federal Reserve to go bankrupt; it holds the legal monopoly of counterfeiting (of creating money out of thin air) in the entire country. — Murray Rothbard

Bad as "independence" is, the main fault of the Federal Reserve System - an admirable system if conducted in the public interest - is that too much power and control rests in the hands of people whose private interests are directly affected by the Federal Reserves' actions. — Wright Patman

I like Mitt Romney as a person. I think he's a dignified person. But I have no common ground on economics. He doesn't worry about the Federal Reserve. He doesn't worry about foreign policy. He doesn't talk about civil liberties, so I would have a hard time to expect him to ever invite me to campaign with him. — Ron Paul

The whole financial structure of Wall Street seems to rise or fall on the mere fact that the Federal Reserve Bank raises or lowers the amount of interest. Any business that can't survive a one percent change must be skating on thin ice.
Why even the poor farmer took a raise of another ten percent just to get a loan from the bank, and nobody from the government paid any attention. But you let Wall Street have a nightmare and the whole country has to help to get them back into bed again. — Will Rogers

To minimize market uncertainty and achieve the maximum effect of its policies, the Federal Reserve is committed to providing the public as much information as possible about the uses of its balance sheet, plans regarding future uses of its balance sheet, and the criteria on which the relevant decisions are based. — Ben Bernanke

Gold has intrinsic value. The problem with the dollar is it has no intrinsic value. And if the Federal Reserve is going to spend trillions of them to buy up all these bad mortgages and all other kinds of bad debt, the dollar is going to lose all of its value. Gold will store its value, and you'll always be able to buy more food with your gold. — Peter Schiff

Lending dollars to the U.S. government is essentially riskless because the U.S. government can always pay such debts. If necessary, the Federal Reserve can print dollars to pay the debt. — Anat Admati

The Federal Reserve's objectives of maximum employment and price stability do not, by themselves, ensure a strong pace of economic growth or an improvement in living standards. The most important factor determining living standards is productivity growth, defined as increases in how much can be produced in an hour of work. — Janet Yellen

Intellectually and compassionately explaining the reason freedom works is required for credibility. — Ron Paul

Had Volcker never pushed through his radical change in policy, the world would be many bond traders and one memoir the poorer. — Michael Lewis

First reason is, it's not authorized in the Constitution, it's an illegal institution. The second reason, it's an immoral institution, because we have delivered to a secretive body the privilege of creating money out of thin air; if you or I did it, we'd be called counterfeiters, so why have we legalized counterfeiting? But the economic reasons are overwhelming: the Federal Reserve is the creature that destroys value. — Ron Paul

Von Pein's family was a little known, but highly influential entity within American banking circles. Banking Royalty, some called it. His grandfather had been one of the chief orchestrators of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which effectively took ownership of the bank from the American people. — James Morcan

I know this, the Federal Reserve is private and the I.R.S. is screwing us. — Alex Jones

the Army contracts private carriers to handle the overflow. In the Gulf War, they even had to resort to forcing major airline companies to cough up planes to make ends meet, under a compulsive federal system known as the Civilian Reserve Airfleet Program (my favorite government acronym of all time). — Piers Platt

Few governmental institutions are more misunderstood and feared out of ignorance than the Federal Reserve Board. — David Baldacci

From the Great Depression, to the stagflation of the seventies, to the current economic crisis caused by the housing bubble, every economic downturn suffered by this country over the past century can be traced to Federal Reserve policy. The Fed has followed a consistent policy of flooding the economy with easy money, leading to a misallocation of resources and an artificial 'boom' followed by a recession or depression when the Fed-created bubble bursts. — Ron Paul

Of all the weapons in the Federal Reserve arsenal, words were the the most unpredictable in their consequences. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The Federal Reserve has the responsibility to protect the credit rights of consumers. — Bernie Sanders

Quantitative easing is just the latest chapter in the Federal Reserve's hundred-year history of failure. ( ... ) The American people have suffered long enough under a monetary policy controlled by an unaccountable, secretive central bank. It is time to finally audit - and then end - the Fed. — Ron Paul

[On reporters trying to cajole a smile from her husband, Alan Greenspan:] For a Federal Reserve chairman, that was a smile. — Andrea Mitchell

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is eager to enter into close relationship with the Bank for International Settlements ... The conclusion is impossible to escape that the State and Treasury Departments are willing to pool the banking system of Europe and America, setting up a world financial power independent of and above the Government of the United States ... The United States under present conditions will be transformed from the most active of manufacturing nations into a consuming and importing nation with a balance of trade against it. — Louis Thomas McFadden

Social security cannot stop due to the large scale human dependence on the program for basic needs. Congress has the mandate to continue this program and the Federal Reserve has the ability to print money to bail it out. So, do not live in fear expecting the worst because this entitlement program is not going away anytime soon. — Lee Johnson

The Federal Reserve and Congress have systematically taught the American people to trust the government and that caution in spending is harmful to the economy. — Ron Paul

What's happening is, there's transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy. This comes about because of the monetary system that we have. When you inflate a currency or destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out. So the people who get to use the money first which is created by the Federal Reserve system benefit. So the money gravitates to the banks and to Wall Street. That's why you have more billionaires than ever before. — Ron Paul

When the Federal Reserve Act was passed, the people of these United States did not perceive that a world banking system was being set up here. A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. Every effort has been made by the Fed to conceal its powers but the truth is - The Fed has usurped the government!! — Louis Thomas McFadden

Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style. The exception was Wells Fargo, a superbly-managed, high-return banking operation in which we increased our ownership to just under 10%, the most we can own without the approval of the Federal Reserve Board. — Warren Buffett

The failure of Lehman Brothers demonstrated that liquidity provision by the Federal Reserve would not be sufficient to stop the crisis; substantial fiscal resources were necessary. — Ben Bernanke

In 2008, Goldman Sachs only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. — Bernie Sanders

Currently we're suffering from the fear instilled into Americans that another 9/11 is just around the corner. We've also been brainwashed into believing the Federal Reserve just saved us from a total financial collapse in the past seven years even though the Fed was one of the most important causes of the crisis. To deal with the threats of another attack and another financial crisis we are expected to complacently accept endless spending, endless debt, endless bailouts, endless inflation by the Federal Reserve, endless spending by the Congress, and even endless war. — Ron Paul

The Federal Reserve was created after a 1913 meeting in Jekyll Island, Ga that was so secret it wasn't discovered until Orafoura began cleaning out his underwear drawer in 1982. — Jarod Kintz

The Federal Reserve System is nothing more than legalized counterfeit. — Ron Paul

When the economic well-being of their nation demanded a strong and creative response, my colleagues at the Federal Reserve ... mustered the moral courage to do what was necessary. — Ben Bernanke

100 Years Is Enough: Time to Make the Fed a Public Utility — Ziad K. Abdelnour

A U.S. dollar is an IOU from the Federal Reserve Bank. It's a promissory note that doesn't actually promise anything. It's not backed by gold or silver. — P. J. O'Rourke

In a democracy the responsibility for the Government's economic policies, which so affect the economy, normally rests with the elected representative of the people: in our case, with the President and the Congress. If these two follow economic policies inimical to the general welfare, they are accountable to the people for their actions on election day. With Federal Reserve independence, however, a body of men exist who control one of the most powerful levers moving the economy and who are responsible to no one. — Wright Patman

The Federal Reserve has an official commitment to two different policies. One is to prevent inflation from getting too high. The second is to maintain high employment ... the European Central Bank has only the first. It has no commitment to keep employment up. — Noam Chomsky

The Open Market Committee, as presently established, is plainly not in the public interest. This committee must be operated by purely public servants, representatives of the people as a whole and not any single interest group. The Open Market Committee should be abolished, and its powers transferred to the Federal Reserve Board - the present public members of the committee, with reasonably short terms of office. — Wright Patman