1. What's Wrong with the Fed? What Would Restore Independence?
- Author:
- Allan H. Meltzer
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Cato Journal
- Institution:
- The Cato Institute
- Abstract:
- On September 1, 1948, Allan Sproul, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, commented on Fed independence: I don't suppose that anyone would still argue that the central banking system should be independent of the Government of the country. The control which such a system exercises, over the volume and value of money is a right of Government and is exercised on behalf of Government, with powers delegated by the Government. But there is a distinction between independence from Government and independence from political influence in a narrower sense. The powers of the central banking system should not be a pawn of any group or faction or party, or even any particular administration, subject to political pressures and its own passing fiscal necessities [Letter to Robert R. Bowie, in Meltzer 2003: 738].
- Topic:
- Government
- Political Geography:
- New York