The following video was broadcast on MSNBCs Morning Meeting, Friday, July 24, 2009:
Federal Reserve is a Ponzi scheme, an inside job
Source: RawStory
The Federal Reserve — the quasi-autonomous body that controls the USs money supply — is a Ponzi scheme that created bubble after bubble in the US economy and needs to be held accountable for its actions, says Eliot Spitzer, the former governor and attorney-general of New York.
In a wide-ranging discussion of the bank bailouts on MSNBCs Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan described the process by which the Federal Reserve exchanged $13.9 trillion of bad bank debt for cash that it gave to the struggling banks.
Spitzer — who built a reputation as the Sheriff of Wall Street for his zealous prosecutions of corporate crime as New Yorks attorney-general and then resigned as the states governor over revelations he had paid for prostitutes — seemed to agree with Ratigan that the bank bailout amounts to Americas greatest theft and cover-up ever.
Advocating in favor of a House bill to audit the Federal Reserve, Spitzer said: The Federal Reserve has benefited for decades from the notion that it is quasi-autonomous, its supposed to be independent. Let me tell you a dirty secret: The Fed has done an absolutely disastrous job since [former Fed Chairman] Paul Volcker left.
The reality is the Fed has blown it. Time and time again, they blew it. Bubble after bubble, they failed to understand what they were doing to the economy.
The most poignant example for me is the AIG bailout, where they gave tens of billions of dollars that went right through — conduit payments — to the investment banks that are now solvent. We [taxpayers] didnt get stock in those banks, they didnt ask what was going on — this begs and cries out for hard, tough examination.
You look at the governing structure of the New York [Federal Reserve], it was run by the very banks that got the money. This is a Ponzi scheme, an inside job. It is outrageous, it is time for Congress to say enough of this. And to give them more power now is crazy.
The Fed needs to be examined carefully.
Spitzer resigned as governor of New York in March, 2008, after news reports stated Spitzer had paid for a $1,000-an-hour New York City call girl.