Where does a U.S. dollar come from? Almost everyone uses and values money but so few know the answer to this question. Who determines how many dollars there are in circulation? The answer to this question, that has great impact on the economy and prices of everyday goods, is not well known amongst American citizens. The United States Treasury prints the dollar. The Federal Reserve System is responsible for regulating and controlling the supply of legal tender, which are Federal Reserve notes, in circulation today. The Federal Reserve does this by loaning money to banks, at interest, that the banks will then loan to the public at interest. The Federal Reserve is extremely powerful in that it can control the vitality of the economy easily through
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A responsibility of the Fed is to keep inflation at a minimum. In 2013, 100 years since the creation of the Fed, consumer prices are about 3,000 percent higher. This is a massive amount of inflation due to the United States leaving the gold standard and the Fed’s issuing of fiat money which is money not tied to a physical asset (Ro). The Federal Reserve is also supposed to prevent or lessen the effects of recessions or depressions. During the time the Fed has been in charge of monetary policy, several major recessions have occurred including two of the greatest in history, the Great Depression and the recession of 2008. The Fed is also suspect to conflict of interests. A recent example being the apportionment of bailout money during the 2008 crisis. Members of the Federal Reserve that were also high ranking positions in their own companies were tied to $4,000,000,000,000 (yes, twelve zeroes) of bailout money sent to their respective companies. An example of this, James Dimon, a member of the New York Fed board and CEO of JP Morgan, saw $391 billion of Fed emergency lending sent his company’s way (“Century of Enslavement”). The Federal Reserve has not looked after all of its responsibilities correctly and has apparent conflicts of …show more content…
Several argue that the Federal Reserve does its job well and takes care of all its responsibilities without blatant fault. The Federal Reserve itself believes that any additional government monitoring would greatly hinder and obstruct the Fed from its job. The Federal Reserve has done a poor job regulating inflation seen by the rapid increase in inflation (Ro). The benefits of the Federal Reserve being more transparent and Congress having greater ability to monitor the Fed outweigh the minor negative consequences that the Reserve warns
A responsibility of the Fed is to keep inflation at a minimum. In 2013, 100 years since the creation of the Fed, consumer prices are about 3,000 percent higher. This is a massive amount of inflation due to the United States leaving the gold standard and the Fed’s issuing of fiat money which is money not tied to a physical asset (Ro). The Federal Reserve is also supposed to prevent or lessen the effects of recessions or depressions. During the time the Fed has been in charge of monetary policy, several major recessions have occurred including two of the greatest in history, the Great Depression and the recession of 2008. The Fed is also suspect to conflict of interests. A recent example being the apportionment of bailout money during the 2008 crisis. Members of the Federal Reserve that were also high ranking positions in their own companies were tied to $4,000,000,000,000 (yes, twelve zeroes) of bailout money sent to their respective companies. An example of this, James Dimon, a member of the New York Fed board and CEO of JP Morgan, saw $391 billion of Fed emergency lending sent his company’s way (“Century of Enslavement”). The Federal Reserve has not looked after all of its responsibilities correctly and has apparent conflicts of …show more content…
Several argue that the Federal Reserve does its job well and takes care of all its responsibilities without blatant fault. The Federal Reserve itself believes that any additional government monitoring would greatly hinder and obstruct the Fed from its job. The Federal Reserve has done a poor job regulating inflation seen by the rapid increase in inflation (Ro). The benefits of the Federal Reserve being more transparent and Congress having greater ability to monitor the Fed outweigh the minor negative consequences that the Reserve warns