Robinson is not making a good case here - the Federal Reserve Act was, at the time, seen as strengthening banks by making their reserves more liquid. If Robinso

Robinson is not making a good case here - the Federal Reserve Act was, at the time, seen as strengthening banks by making their reserves more liquid. If Robinson wants to argue that it had the opposite effect, he will need a lot more than his opinion. If he is right, then there should have been fewer bank failures in the decades preceding the FRA; but in fact, history is full of them. The post-1913 banking system functioned well for decades, including during a world war. Obviously it had its weaknesses, but where is the proof that the pre-1913 system would have been better in the same circumstances? Also, he is carping about the wrong thing - he complains that the Fed was only 40% secured by gold, but the Fed is not the entity that failed; the banks did. It wouldn't have mattered if the Fed was secured by pure unobtanium. In short, I'm not convinced by any of this - it's basically just one guy's opinion from 1935.