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Of course we can decide how the central bank works in the U.S.--we vote for new politicians whose views on money more closely align with our own. They install
by Frondo 12y ago
Of course we can decide how the central bank works in the U.S.--we vote for new politicians whose views on money more closely align with our own. They install new administrators, who set policy that more closely aligns with our views.
Do we vote on central banking policies directly? No, of course not. Does that mean nothing ever changes? No, of course not.
I'm not sure who, if Mitt Romney had won, he'd have named as Fed chair, but I suspect it wouldn't have been Janet Yellen. (Just like, had McCain won in 2008, we sure wouldn't have anything like the Affordable Care Act--which, flawed as it is, is a big improvement over the old status quo.)
That's how democratic access to money policy works; we vote, power realigns in accordance with our votes, and a few years down the road, we do it again.
- rjett 12y ago"That's how democratic access to money policy works; we vote, power realigns in accordance with our votes, and a few years down the road, we do it again." And therein lies a problem. Under a system like this, policy is geared towards affecting the short term in order to affect the next election cycle and no heed is given to how things play out in the long run.
- Frondo 12y agoI think the economy is something we can revisit every couple of years, to see, do we still like the direction it's going? Should we keep the old people in, vote for new people? Maybe 4 years is too short a time to revisit the question. Maybe too long. I don't know if 4 years is the best length of time, but it doesn't make sense to make it too long a period of time; we've got to have a chance to change course every so often.
- jsprogrammer 12y agoWe decide how central banks work by electing a new president, hoping the current chair expires during their term, having a new chair approved, hoping the new chair has the authority to and does implement the policies we want. How is that better and more likely to happen than allowing 51% of the network to just adopt a new protocol and cut out all the middlepeople?
- snowwrestler 12y agoThe Fed was established by an act of Congress and can be changed or abolished by an act of Congress. Congress is democratically elected. That's the connection to the people. The reason Congress has not abolished the Fed is that most people think that the Fed is pretty good at what it is supposed to do.
- ende 12y agoYou assume there is any real democratic control of Congress, and that the whole game hasn't been rigged by a duopolist oligarchy.
- alextgordon 12y agoAmerica doesn't even have democratically elected presidents (just ask Al Gore). Hoping that Congress will even halfway represent the wishes of the people is bold.
- jsprogrammer 12y agoMost people have no idea what the Fed does (let alone that it even exists) nor do they have any framework with which to evaluate its work.
- bpodgursky 12y agoI assure you, if inflation reached 10+%, most every voter in the US would know what the Fed does and what they wanted it to do instead. The non-conspiracy fact is the Fed has stayed quiet during the past 7 years because it has done a remarkably good job compared to their conservative-to-the-point-of-incompetency European counterparts. Europeans are quite familiar with ECB policy, because it has handled the crisis so astoundingly badly.
- jsprogrammer 12y agoThanks for your assurances, but catastrophic failure does not an understanding make. Also, "not break the economy" is not an actionable (or, I'd argue, even comprehensible) framework.