Professor Timothy Canova at Chapman University School of Law has recently published “The Federal Reserve We Need” in The American Prospect. Therein, Professor Canova details, painstakingly, the path that The Federal Reserve has taken from a governmental agency charged with safeguarding the American economy through sound monetary policy to an organization that has simply adopted the private banking interests and agenda as its own. Professor Canova highlights the groundbreaking work of former Fed Chair Marriner Eccles during and after the Great Depressions and juxtaposes the role that Eccles played in assisting the American economy with that of Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke and argues that Greenspan and Bernanke have co-opted the private interests of banks rather than safeguarding the best interests of the American economy. Read his excellent article here: The Federal Reserve We Need Additionally, Reuters has just published an investigative report, entitled “Cozying Up to Big Investors at Club Fed,” that details the many conflicts of interest that continue to exist at the Federal Reserve, including what amounts to very nearly insider trading engaged in by members of the Federal Reserve and the clients that subscribe to a specific member’s consulting services. The full article can be read here: Club Fed
Lost in much of the discussion of the financial market crisis causes is the debilitating role the Fed’s wholesale adoption of the private banking industry agenda has played. As Canova details, and as carefully described in Simon Johnson’s 13 Bankers, a subtle movement has enveloped economic policy in America — the Wall Street investment bank executive agenda has become America’s economic agenda. This wholesale adoption has proved a failure.