• "Well written, well researched, and the thesis put forth is well argued.... Woods has opened up an area of historical analysis that should invite further study."
    -Journal of American History

  • "During these times that challenge our freedoms there is no one more qualified to make U.S. history relevant to the fight against big government than Thomas Woods."
    -Barry Goldwater Jr.
    Former Member of Congress

  • "I strongly recommend Woods's work."
    -The Honorable Ron Paul,
    U.S. House of Representatives

  • "Written with great clarity and fluency, making the complex philosophical and theological concepts approachable."
    -Journal of American Studies

  • "A must-read."
    -Barron's

  • "An excellent reading source for anyone interested in financial markets, and much more so for anyone interested in learning about capitalism without all the misinterpretations being thrown about in the financial media."
    -Asia Times

  • "Provocative, well-written, and deserves to be read."
    -Catholic Historical Review

  • "An engaging and important contribution to scholarship on the history of American Catholicism."
    -Journal of the Historical Society

  • "Woods and [co-author Kevin] Gutzman appeal to both left and right in this constitutionalist jeremiad…. The authors' exegeses of the Constitution and court decisions, heavy on original intent arguments, are lucid and telling."
    -Publishers Weekly

  • "A marvelous read. Every chapter taught me something new and unexpected."
    -Tom Bethell, senior editor,
    The American Spectator

  • "The hottest book today is Meltdown, by my friend Tom Woods."
    -Judge Andrew Napolitano, senior judicial analyst,
    FOX News Channel

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    -Peter Schiff

What Should I Ask the Atlanta Fed President?

A member of my Liberty Classroom asks in our discussion forums:

So, the Atlanta Federal Reserve President, Dennis Lockhart, is coming to my school to give a lecture on the Fed’s role in monetary policy. Does anyone have any good suggestions for questions I should ask him if given the opportunity?

Please share your suggestions here!

Unlearn the Propaganda!

  • http://twitter.com/evmazu E Mazur

    What are the similarities and differences between the Federal Reserve and the national bank proposed by Karl Marx in the the 5th plank of the Communist Manifesto?

    George W. Bush selected all 7 members of the Federal Reserve Board in just over years in office. Given this, how can the Federal Reserve Board claim to be independent from politics?

    Federal Reserve advocates claim that the so called free banking era was a time of unregulated banking which lead to panics and recessions. What they never mention is that states had their own central banks issuing money unbacked by gold, and many states required banks to get a government issued charter in order to open up business, and a condition was that banks would have to loan the state government money but the state allow them to engage in fractional reserve banking. In what way was this an era of unregulated banking?

    There is only 1 necessary regulation for banks: be able to return its customers’ money on demand or be sent to the gallows. Agree or disagree?

    Why did the Federal Reserve bail out investment banks?

  • guest

    When price inflation is higher than the interest paid on savings accounts, doesn’t that mean that the money held in such savings accounts would lose purchasing power?

  • Andy

    Why do these Fed Governors still buy into the absurd notion of the Phillips Curve? How does the Fed plan to unload and/or unwind their $2T balance sheet (sell bonds/MBS Paper) when/if no one else wants to buy them (including the Bank of China, Japan, and the ECB)?

  • Chris Barcelo

    Would the FED allow Romney to kill Big Bird?

    No but serious. Why not just flat out ask them why can’t we just print as much money as we want / ‘need’?

    Ask them how they ‘measure’ to make sure they are staying at a ‘safe’ inflation level.

    Ask them how they ACCURATELY measure inflation.

    Ask them how accurate are index readings and if they are arbitrary.

    The list can go on…

  • Chris Barcelo

    Most of all try and ask a SIMPLE question. One that is so blatantly a fallacy of logic. The technical questions may make you sound smart and informed, hell they may even be justified, but all in all they will just duck out of the answer as it is “too complicated” for the time they have to answer.

    Put them on the spot with a good old bait and switch.

  • Anonymous

    What does the Fed have against the market pricing mechanism?

    Why has the Fed drifted so far away from its original charter, namely to provide capital to solvent banks in exchange for good collateral in times of cyclical need?

    Do you feel that government granted monopolies are superior to vigorous competition in markets? If not, why is money different?

    Why do central banks hold gold?

    How are market participants expected to evaluate the credit worthiness of government or corporate entities in the midst of federal reserve asset purchase programs?

    Did you witness and/or read Jim Grant or Bob Wenzel’s speeches at the NY Federal Reserve earlier this year? And if so, what was your reaction?

    Why was Ben Bernanke critical of a similar Operation Twist style program back in the 50′s with a paper he helped write about 10 years ago and yet still implemented the same program anyway in the midst of the current crisis?

    Are there any reasons why the Fed would discourage a monetary system that permitted competition in currencies if Congress were to pass such legislation? If so, why?

    At what point would the Fed be willing to concede that monetary policy has failed? Or will it continue to intervene in markets until some desired macroeconomic outcome is attained?

  • http://twitter.com/the_chiefe71 The Chiefe

    What are you doing here…hoping to achieve what exactly?

    Why would a Fed Chairman go to the “Liberty Classroom” in the first place?

  • michael Fleischer

    Money in a society is obtained by earning it, meaning that to acquire the money commodity one must produce a good or service and voluntarily trade it ( for money) with another individual. The fair or MORAL way for one to obtain money is to earn it by producing. How is it then a moral act for the federal reserve or really any organisation that engages in fractional reserve activity to create claims to goods or services without first producing goods or services. In other words how is the federal reserve NOT an immoral body?

  • http://twitter.com/the_chiefe71 The Chiefe

    Ahh, clearly I misread your cryptic post. Even though the student is at Liberty Classroom, but also attends some other conventional school & that’s where the Fed stooge is headed. Not to Liberty Classroom….

  • NJDave

    See, I think I think asking a technical question is the wrong approach here. He will most likely give an answer that avoids the crux of your inquiry while sounding intelligent enough to fool everyone in the room.

  • Anonymous

    Hey tom, ask dennis if he perfers pistols, F I S T, or willie’s favorite…….tomahawks

  • BastiatLawyer

    I would like to suggest asking him leading questions that are slightly argumentative. That way you can use the forum as an opportunity to educate those around you.
    Such as:
    “Are you aware that, under the federal reserve (central banking) system, the dollar has been devalued over 92% of its value since the fed was created back in 1913? Know and cite your source too.

    “In light of QE3 unlimited, do you think it is wise monetary policy to inflate away the savings of elderly Americans on a fixed income, in exchange for bailing banks holding mortgage backed securities”

    “Are you aware that all attempts at fiat currency, not linked to anything other than itself, has ended in disaster for the economies instituting such policies. This is true all the way from ancient Rome to 1900′s Germany. So what makes you think that our manipulations of money will fare any better?”

  • Neil Johnson

    That is exactly the question I would ask. It is non-technical and gets at the fact that the Fed is nothing more than a “legal” counterfeiter. All their technical money manipulations are ultimately are based on that fundamental reality.

  • Neil Johnson

    After I wrote the above post I realized that I had written down some thoughts several months ago that I never posted anywhere. Here’s what I wrote:

    Has anyone even considered that our current monetary system
    is immoral? True money is a medium of exchange. It is probably the single most important development in the history of economics.

    Consider the barter system. No valid transaction can take place unless two people have something tangible to exchange. Ignore for the
    moment the problem of coincident wants – that is, each person must have something to exchange that the other person wants. Of course, money came into existence to solve that problem.

    But notice that money is only a facilitator of exchange. True money must represent some tangible “thing”. In other words true money is a certificate of contribution to the economy, whether that contribution is goods or services. It says that I have actually caught two fish that I want to exchange for your bag of wheat. Of course, the bag of wheat did not come into existence without the effort of the person offering it for sale.

    When your neighborhood counterfeiter or the Federal Reserve
    prints money, that money does not represent a tangible contribution to the economy. As Ron Paul said in one of his speeches, when the local crime syndicate prints money that is called counterfeiting, but when the Federal Reserve prints money that is called good monetary policy.

    Gold and silver have become the money of choice and according to the Constitution no state may “make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

    As I write this I am observing an image of Zimbabwe’s One Hundred Trillion Dollar note with Ron Paul’s signature. Is this the future of our monetary system?

  • Wally

    Do you feel guilty about destroying the US dollar and the US economy? How do you sleep at night? When do you plan on resigning?

  • kirk

    Ask him in what category he feels the Constitution of the United states was written, poorly, OK, well or very well? Then ask him why the Founding Fathers of the, very well or well, written Constitution initially mandated gold and silver for legal tender and not paper money?(they knew what the banking bastards would do, just look around) Then let him know that, once we restore our republic to honest money that you will find pleasure in his arrest for helping counter fit money and theft! Then go out with your friends later that night have a round and cheers up for the liberty movement and start tomorrow by living and promoting the cause of liberty. Ron Paul 2016 if they don’t kill him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • JimM

    How much gold is held by the US government right now?

  • Laura

    Just like in the Titanic disaster, middle class people are wondering why huge bank corporations are bailed out, when they caused their own derivative gambling debts, and when many of us lost 50% of our 401k’s in the stock market crash they caused, and have never been able to recoup our losses, yet his elitist friends recouped ALL their personal losses, and then some, if you count their billion dollar bonuses, so how is this fair?

    You can tell him we don’t think any of this is fair! What’s right is right, a what’s wrong is wrong, and THAT is WRONG!

  • http://twitter.com/NateForLiberty Nathan Diehl

    Ask him to retire and then take a vow of silence for the rest of his life.

  • Anonymous

    Wikipedia is very trustworthy on this sort of question.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bullion_Depository

    Here’s an interesting question. Suppose a terrorist gets a dirty bomb and manages to detonate it over Ft. Knox, somehow rendering the gold there inaccessible for generations.

    Who is poorer then?

  • reasonableways

    Ask him a question that promotes moderates and fiscal conservatives in the Fed. For example, ask about Paul Volcker type policies or Thomas Hoenig, the former President of the KC Fed. Hoenig was against the Fed’s 0% interest rate and wrote an essay entitled, “Too Big Has Failed”.

    We need to get the Fed sober before we can close it down.

    See- “Too Big Has Failed”
    http://www.kc.frb.org/speechbio/hoenigPDF/Omaha.03.06.09.pdf

  • Dean

    Ask if suspending the income tax for 90 days wouldn’t stimulate the economy by increasing the average weekly paycheck by $110?

  • Citizen

    Since the FED is approaching it’s final year of its Bank Charter, is the FED really considering applying for renewal?
    Does the FED have a Living Will?
    When the FED finally collapses, is it going to redeem the “reserve notes” in gold, as FDR promised?
    When was Mr. Bernanke’s last full medical examination and were there any psych evaluations?
    What kind of “stress test” is the FED undertaking?
    Does the FED have Errors and Omission Liability Insurance?
    Is the FED the least bit concerned about running out of silk rag paper or ink?
    Shouldn’t the FED consider hiring 12 million new junior banksters to make a real and sincere attempt to lower the unemployment rate?
    ****At the federally mandated minimum wage rate, I calculate that would only cost ****the FED $181 Billion annually, chump change for guys like Uncle Ben?
    Well you get my drift

  • rickey fred

    How does the fed messure profit, through salles or coercion?

  • BrunoT

    All I know is that your question should start with “WTF?” .