Michael Cohen wrote:
>I would appreciate it if you would post for the benefit of this list
>references to your own or other peoples best research on the topic
where
>a fuller nuanced and more accurate account is available.
My most recent paper is "Bank Influence and the Failure of US Monetary Policy during the 1953-54 Recession," International Review of Applied Economics, Vol. 12, No. 2, 1998, pp. 221-240.
The bibliography should give you a feel for the literature.
Edwin Dickens ------------------------
This reminds me of something that happened at work last Saturday. I fix wheel chairs and you will never guess who was sitting in the shop at the same time. A vice president of Wells Fargo in San Francisco, and a Federal Reserve Bank, banking auditor (federal region nine is HQ'd in SF).
So, I says, well guys what's all this shit about Asia, Russia, and the global melt down? It was great. The Wells Fargo VP was more worried about the new take over company (they are pushing WinNT, but a lot of WFargo systems are still running Unix) and the auditor was finally getting some interesting local monitoring work to do from up the bureaucratic pipeline--they use MS Access of all things (that alone says it all--we are in deep do-doo, ladies and gentlemen).
Since we had had these conversations about software and OS systems before, I ask if the Fed was a real bank, you know with money downstairs. Sure enough. So how much? About 3.5-4 billion in cash and another larger some odd billion in coin. Now, that perked up my ears. So, what happens when us grotty prols get our hammers and sickles and march over with torches to break down the door? Is some rent-a-cop going to stop us or join us? Well, see, this is the new electronic age and the Fed is directly tied into the entire city, state, and federal armed police grid, so us greasy prols might get in, but we won't get out--alive. I got the impression that everything from tear gas to F-16's could be deployed in less than half an hour. Well, provided the modems worked (ha, ha).
I can just see it now, outside a rude crowd of prols is looting the place, meanwhile behind 4 foot thick thermonuclear blast proof doors, the WinNT security program crashes on a Microsuck glitch--turning the emergency rescue, swat team, and call-in-air-strikes-fall back plan--into nothing more than yet another blue screen of death. The possibilities are awesome. Wasn't there a Clint Eastwood movie about knocking off the SF Fed?
Chuck,
PS. So, Wells Fargo, the Fed, and the privatized social safety net all embodied as three guys on a Saturday had a great laugh. We've been over health care more often than software or the global collapse (Monica, Clinton, and Congress never came up). Here is something along similar software lines from James Baird:
Anyone for creative ways of executing Bill Gates? How about hooking the electric chair up to an NT box - when it crashes, so does he...
Sadistically yours,
Jim Baird --------------
Which sort of reminds me of Schoedinger's cat-in-the-box paradox.