An overseas perspective on our recent elections

I found this article cross-posted on Blogcritics, and traced it back to its author, Kenn Jacobine, a teacher at the American School in Qatar. He blogs at 'The View From Abroad', and makes some interesting points about the recent mid-term elections. A short extract:

Look, our political and financial systems are corrupt and rigged. They make a Mafia bookmaker look honest. Think of it like a happy love triangle between Congress, the Fed, and Wall Street. To protect itself politically Congress has contracted out management of our money supply to the Federal Reserve. In return, the Fed prints money out of thin air to support Congress’ deficit spending which ensures its high reelection rate. The Fed supports big banks by loaning them our money at very low rates. It bails them out when they don’t have enough reserves to meet obligations. It allows fractional reserve banking whereby banks are guaranteed solvency by the Fed even though they loan out up to 90 percent of deposits on their books. The final link in the cycle is the contributions given by Wall Street banks to members of Congress. We’ve heard DeMint, McConnell, Cantor, Boehner and other Republicans decry the deficit spending of Democrats but when have we ever heard them decry the Federal Reserve? Never. There is a good reason for this: the Fed is their meal ticket to reelection through the financing of deficit spending and campaign kickbacks from Wall Street.

This whole rigged system has been destroying our standard of living for decades. By adding more dollars to a low producing economy the value of our currency will continue to deteriorate and prices will spike. Previous “stimulus” spending of Congress and quantitative easing by the Fed has already caused commodity prices to rise hugely in the last year: Agricultural Raw Materials up 24%, Industrial Inputs Index up 25%, Metals Price Index up 26%, Coffee up 45%, Barley up 32%, Oranges up 35%, Beef up 23%, Pork up 68%, Salmon up 30%, Sugar up 24%, Wool up 20%, Cotton up 40%, and Rubber: 62%. You get the idea. Imagine price increases after this next round of easing. But don’t worry, because the Fed’s member banks will know when to pull out of the stock market before it busts.

At the end of the day, if you voted for smaller, less expensive government last Tuesday your vote was negated by the unelected economic central planners at the Federal Reserve.

There's more at the link. Recommended reading (albeit uncomfortable), particularly as it ties in nicely with what I wrote last Sunday about the Federal Reserve.

Peter