6/21/2015 articles
The Hidden Power of the Federal Reserve
The Wall Street Journal for Thursday, June 18, 2015 headlined its lead story “Fed Signals Slow Pace for Rate Hikes.”
Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said in a press conference following the Fed’s two-day policy meeting, “Economic conditions are currently anticipated to evolve in a manner that will warrant only gradual increases in the target federal funds rate.”
The Journal commented that “As part of its release, the Fed suggested it might raise rates only once in 2015 by a quarter percentage point, rather than twice as many officials previously anticipated.
“By December 2017, the Fed expects its benchmark short-term interest rate to remain below 3%, far lower than it has been for the past half century this long into an economic expansion.
“For now, the Fed said a benchmark interest rate near zero, where it has been since December 2008, remains appropriate.”
“If you’re an investor trying to get a clear view of what money policy might be going forward, there is still a great deal of uncertainty,” said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust.
“We are expecting the first move in September, but I am not expecting them to move aggressively thereafter. I think they’ll try to be quite cautious … there are still fragile parts of the world economy that might be unsettled by a rapid increase in American interest rates.”
Yellen said of a timetable for the first rate hike:
“I can’t give an ironclad promise, but I think it’s clear from the summary of economic projections that we anticipate that the economy will grow, that the labor market will improve, that inflation will move back up to 2 percent. And if economic conditions unfold in this way that most of my colleagues and I anticipate, we see it as appropriate to raise rates.”
Remember that the Federal Reserve is not Federal and never has been. It is privately owned.
As Ron Paul, former Congressman, wrote in his book, End the Fed: “After all is said and done, the Fed has one power that is unique to it alone: it enables the creation of money out of thin air. Sometimes it makes vast new amounts.”
Senator Rand Paul Proposes a Flat Tax
Sen. Rand Paul (R. Ky.) suggests that Congress get rid of the current tax code and apply a 14.5% flat tax to personal income and to businesses. Cut deductions. Then, watch the economy roar.
Whom would he choose to help him? For starters, he chose the Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore, former presidential candidate Steve Forbes, and Reagan economist Arthur Laffer.
Michelle Obama's School Lunch Program
Julie Kelly and Jeff Stier take a look at the Health, Hunger-Free kids Act of 2010.
The headline on the story reads “The School Lunch Program with an Unappetizing Report Card.”
The subject is the school lunch program drafted by first lady Michelle Obama. Her intentions were noble but the food itself left a lot to be desired.
Called the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 it funds a number of child-nutrition programs including the National School Lunch Program, which costs $12 billion a year—plus $3 billion for breakfast programs—and serves nearly 32 million children, about 45% of the total U.S. youth population.
Even though lunches are “free” they are so unappetizing thanks to new nutrition standards that much of the food is thrown away. “It’s horrible,” one inner-city principal responsible for 1,200 students and 10,000 meals a week told us, “It is just heartbreaking how much food is thrown away.”
The program wastes money. One largely unknown provision allows entire school districts, rather than individual families, to apply for free meals. For instance, all of Chicago’s 400,000 public-school students receive free breakfasts, lunch and a snack regardless of financial need.
TO BE CONTINUED