Who Rules America Today? (was Re: On the Defense of Parasitic Finance)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Jan 15 06:27:38 PST 2001


Max Sawicky wrote:


>My top reforms:
>
>democratize the Fed
>strengthen its full-employment mandate
>regulate for fair credit allocation in minority communities
>create public banks in poor neighborhoods to take over basic
> fin services (check cashing, etc.)
>
>Was that too anti-semitic?

No. I agree with the public banks part. Take it up with the bourgeoisie - they won't be pleased.

As for "democratizing the Fed," it'd also be nice to democratize Congress. That aside, this is where we get into the Kalecki kontroversy. Most industrialists don't want labor markets to be too tight. They may have a slightly more generous definition of full employment than your average denizen of the bond pits, but not much. In other words, there's no significant difference between big industry and big finance over Fed policy. If there were, the Fed would be a lot more controversial politically than it is.

"Minority communities" need credit less than they need infrastructure investment and social spending. The last thing they need is to be deeper in hock to The Man.

Doug



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