I hear this a lot.  There are many anti-Fed people out there who say, “did you know that the Fed is a private organization?”  I will also hear things like, “the Fed is disguised as a government organization, when it is actually private.”  Unfortunately, the truth is almost the opposite.

I am always happy to hear people when they are against the Federal Reserve system.  Unfortunately, many people are misled and don’t really understand what the Fed does and what purpose it really serves.  Now, it is certainly true that the Fed serves the interests of the big bankers.  However, the Fed also serves the interests of the politicians in Washington DC.

Here are four reasons that the Federal Reserve is a government organization.

1) Look at the website for the Federal Reserve.  It ends in “.gov”.

2) The chairman of the Fed is chosen by the President of the United States.  The chairman is confirmed by the United States Senate.  The seven members of the Board of Governors is also appointed by the President.  Is the CEO of Apple or McDonald’s chosen by the government?

3) The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was passed by Congress and signed into law.  Why was this necessary if the Fed is a private organization?

4) This is by far the most important point.  The Federal Reserve has been granted a monopoly over the U.S. dollar, which is the legal tender for the whole country.  Any person or corporation who tried to do what the Fed does, would be considered a criminal and would most likely go to jail.  If the Fed didn’t have a government-granted monopoly over the money supply, then it wouldn’t be a big deal.

While I like anyone who is anti-Fed, I think it hurts our cause when people get hung up on the idea of the Fed being a private organization.  In fact, even if your definition of a private organization is different than mine, does it really matter?  The whole point is that the Fed does great harm to us by funding Congress, devaluing our money, and causing an artificial business cycle.

We don’t really need to abolish the Federal Reserve.  We just need to revoke its special privileges in having a monopoly over the supply of money.  In fact, we really just need to repeal the legal tender laws, stop taxing gold and silver, and allow for private minting.  We just need to be free to use the form of money of our own choosing.

The Federal Reserve may have been formed by the bankers to help the bankers.  The Fed certainly does help the big bankers as we saw in the fall of 2008.  But the Fed is allowed to exist by Congress because it helps fund Congress.  There is no way that the government could be running trillion dollar deficits without a central bank.  This is why states have to balance their budgets and are very limited as to how much debt can be accumulated.  The federal government doesn’t have these restraints, thanks to the Fed.

In conclusion, you can call the Fed a private organization all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that it has been granted a monopoly over the money supply by the government.  It also doesn’t change the fact that it helps fund the government by buying government debt through money creation.

China has seen an explosion in economic growth since some liberalization began to take place over 3 decades ago.  While hundreds of millions of Chinese people still live at or near the poverty level, there is no question that the standard of living has gone up quite a bit in China, particularly for those living in the cities.

Unfortunately, not all of that growth has been genuine.  Just as some of the economic growth of the last 3 decades in the U.S. was an illusion, the same is true for China.  When you have a central bank that is inflating at double digit rates per year as the Chinese central bank has been doing for a while, then there are going to be bubbles and busts.

Just as the U.S. had a real estate bubble, China also apparently has a real estate bubble.  The U.S. real estate bubble began to pop about 5 or 6 years ago.  We are still waiting for the Chinese real estate bubble to  pop.

The Austrian Business Cycle Theory can teach us something here.  When the central bank creates new money out of thin air, along with artificially low interest rates, there are distortions in the economy.  Eventually it will result in a bust.  Either the central bank will try to accelerate the monetary inflation in order to keep the bubble propped up or the central bank will not accelerate monetary inflation.  If it continues to increase the monetary inflation rate, then it will eventually lead to hyperinflation and a total destruction of the money.  If the rate of monetary inflation is not increased (it doesn’t have to be a decrease in the money supply, just a slowdown in the rate of increase), then the bad investments will be revealed and a bust will occur.

The real estate in China has seen a massive boom.  This has occurred simultaneously with very high monetary inflation, sometimes above 20%.  There will be an inevitable bust.

Bill Sardi had an article at LewRockwell.com the other day.  He said that, “Chinese bankers are more conservative than the colleagues in the US and require 30-60% down payment on home loans.”  While it’s true that the down payments for housing have been much bigger in China than what is typically seen in the U.S., it still doesn’t negate the central bank induced boom/ bust cycle.  You don’t necessarily have to have massive leverage for a bubble to occur.

We have seen bubbles in gold and bubbles in the stock market in the past.  There was a massive bubble in the stock market in the late 1990’s, particularly in technology stocks.  While there may have been some leverage with futures and options, there were a lot of people who simply bought shares in stocks with money that was saved.  These people were not using leverage.  Yet, it didn’t prevent a collapse in prices.

The fact that there are bigger down payments in regards to Chinese real estate may result in some differences from the U.S. real estate bust.  If the bust isn’t too bad (which I’m not betting on), then perhaps we won’t see as many underwater properties because of the high down payments.  Because of this, we may see less trouble with banks.  But regardless, all indications show that there is going to be a big bust in real estate in China.

Since China’s history has been one of mostly poverty, this will be the first big bust that China experiences.  Some people there have gotten a taste of a higher standard of living.  When the bust occurs, it will be interesting to see what happens.  Will people demand less government or more?  Will communism officially fall?  Or will they turn into more of a bureaucracy like the U.S. with more financial regulation, even though the business cycle is being fueled by the central bank?

I don’t know what the outcome of all of this will be, but I am fairly certain that there will be a bust in the Chinese real estate market.

One of the things making political news right now is an extension of the payroll tax cut.  The Republicans in the House were originally against extending this tax cut unless it was coupled with offsetting spending cuts.  The Republicans have backtracked now and have said they are willing to pass the tax cut extension without fighting over budget cuts.

As I have discussed this before, the payroll tax cut is not an effective way to reduce unemployment.  To help get people back to work, the tax cut should go to the employer’s portion of the tax cut.  This would reduce the cost of labor and help unemployment.  Instead, cutting the payroll tax for employees is just temporarily helping people who currently have jobs.

Personally, I am happy to see a reduction in the payroll tax.  I figure that the government is going bankrupt anyway, so I may as well take what I can get now.

However, I would like to take this example and perform a reductio ad absurdum.  What if the federal government decided to eliminate all payroll taxes?  What if the federal government decided to eliminate all federal income taxes?  What if the federal government decided to eliminate all federal taxes?

Before you get excited, I am not talking about the federal government turning libertarian.  I am not suggesting that all of the federal spending be cut in this example.  I am suggesting the hypothetical question, what would happen if all federal taxes were eliminated and all government spending were funded by the Fed?

If this were to happen, it would obviously be highly inflationary.  Why would people (or foreign governments) buy U.S. government debt if the only way to pay it off were to create even more money out of thin air?  Of course, it almost sounds like the situation we have now, and yet people and foreign governments continue to buy government debt, along with the Fed.

However, perhaps the Fed could just fund the government directly by creating the new money out of thin air and handing it over to DC to spend.  Whether the Fed was the only purchaser of U.S. government bonds or if it simply created new money and handed it over directly, it would obviously threaten the validity of the U.S. dollar.  Although this example sounds ridiculous, it is ridiculous to think that the government has been running deficits well over $1 trillion for the last several years.

If the government were to operate this way with no taxes, then it would be the same situation we are in today, except that the day of reckoning would happen much quicker.  There would be a threat of hyperinflation and a total destruction of the U.S. dollar.  The only way to prevent this from happening in this scenario would be to cut government spending dramatically or to start taxing again.  If it was only scene as a temporary measure to stimulate the economy (even though it wouldn’t create any economic growth without a cut in government spending), then the dollar might survive if people truly thought that the money creation would stop one day.

The Republicans were right to originally demand cuts in government spending to go along with the payroll tax cut.  However, the Republicans have the majority in the House of Representatives.  They can control spending whether it is attached to a tax cut bill or not.  The House Republicans could stop all of the deficit spending by refusing to pass an unbalanced budget.  But they won’t.

Enjoy your tax cut extension if you have a job.  I would recommend taking the proceeds and buying some gold, or perhaps a passport, just in case.

Most Americans (and people throughout the world) do not have much of an understanding of the Federal Reserve, if any at all.  There is a much larger percentage who understand that the Fed does us harm than there were just 5 years ago.  This is mainly due to Ron Paul and the internet.  The economic fall of 2008 also helped, as more people became curious about the subject.

Still, not more than 10% of Americans have a good understanding of the damage that the Fed causes.  On this subject,  I would guess that even fewer people understand central banking throughout the world.  Americans can make foreigners look ignorant on this subject, but it is all relative.

For those who do have a grasp of the damage done by the Fed, even some of these people do not understand the extent of it.  Not only does the Fed (and its monopoly power over the money supply) cause prices to increase, it actually prevents prices from falling.

I know that many libertarians speak out against the CPI (consumer price index).  They see it as a manipulated government statistic.  In some ways, they are right.  I do believe that the CPI can be somewhat useful in at least determining trends.  But actually, the biggest failure of the CPI is that it hides the fact that prices would actually gradually decrease over time.  This is the way it should be.

Think about the electronics industry.  Think about computers, televisions, cell phones, cameras, etc.  All of these things are cheaper now and yet the technology is exponentially better than just a few years ago.  Compare this to the healthcare industry, which by no coincidence is heavily controlled by the government.  Healthcare gets more and more expensive each year and the quality doesn’t even improve much in some areas.

If there were no central bank with a monopoly over the money supply, or even if the Fed did exist but just kept a stable money supply, then prices for electronics would be even lower.

Over 10 years ago, I bought a Sony 27″ television for about $400.  The thing weighed about as much as a medium-sized 12 year old.  The quality wasn’t even that good, particularly for a Sony.  I never liked the sound.  Now I can buy a television for $400 that is bigger in screen size, much better quality, flat panel, and far lighter.  But, here is the kicker.  Not only can you get a better television for the same price, price inflation has gone up over 27% in the last decade, and that is just according to government statistics.

If there had been stable money just in the last decade, a 55″ big screen television might cost only $400 now, if that.

I know some people will counter this by saying that inflation also raises our wages.  But how much weight does this argument really carry now?  In the last couple of years, wages have been stagnant in nominal terms, with unemployment having gone up.  In real inflation-adjusted terms, wages have been going down.  Wages are usually the last thing to go up in an inflationary environment.

For most people, their wages and benefits have not kept up with the price of healthcare and health insurance, food, gasoline, and other essentials.  Inflation has been quite devastating, particularly to the poor and middle class.  Government spending and monetary inflation are squarely to blame for the declining living standards of the American people.

If we could get a crystal ball to show how much better our lives would be without the Fed’s monetary inflation, then there would be rioting in the streets.  As more Americans learn the scam that is the central bank, we can hope that one day we will once again realize true peace and prosperity.

Although I usually write about investments and money from a libertarian perspective, it is good every once in a while to talk about debt.  Debt and investments are not mutually exclusive things.  You are making an investment decision if you have extra money and you are not using it to pay down your debt.

Of course, there are many different kinds of debt.  Mortgage debt is not necessarily bad debt, while credit card debt is bad under most circumstances.  Credit card debt should be aggressively paid down if you have it.  With mortgage debt, there are pros and cons to paying it down.

If you have credit card debt that you are not paying off each month, then it is almost foolish of you to be investing money.  It really doesn’t even make sense to have an emergency fund.  If you pay down your credit card debt while leaving little money in the bank, you can at least go back to using your credit card in an emergency situation and you will be no worse off than if you had kept the money in the bank.

If you have credit card debt with an interest rate of 18%, why would you even think about investing?  How are you going to find a guaranteed return of 18%?  Even if your interest rate is 10%, how could you match that with investing?

Some will argue that the one exception is a 401k where your employer is contributing matching funds.  You might be able to get a 50% or 100% return on the money you contribute.  This is a possible exception, but even here my individual choice would be to not contribute to the 401k and use that money to pay down the credit card debt.  You can start contributing once all of your high interest debt is paid off.  Money going into a 401k plan is not liquid.

Other debt like car loans are a little trickier.  If you have a low interest rate like 2.9%, then I don’t really see a problem in investing extra money, as long as you know what you are doing.  However, if you are taking all of your money and betting on one stock, I think it would be a better choice to pay down the car debt, even at 2.9%.  If you are taking your money and putting it in a money market fund that earns .1% interest, then you should definitely be paying down your car loan instead.  The only reason not to pay down the loan in this situation is if you might need that money for an immediate emergency.

I have actually heard people ask if they should take out extra student loans so that they can invest the money.  You should absolutely never borrow money for an investment, unless it is for investment real estate where you know you can generate positive cash flow.

In knowing and reading many other libertarians, I have also seen the argument that it is acceptable to take on debt because you can just pay it off in depreciated money after we have severe inflation.  While this might turn out to be correct, it also may not.  You cannot predict Federal Reserve policy in the future.  You cannot predict what hundreds of millions of people are going to do.  Perhaps unemployment will get worse and people will become so fearful that they dramatically cut back on their personal spending.  In this scenario, we could actually see prices decline.  In addition, even if there was massive inflation, it will be prices that will go up.  Your income will probably not keep pace, so don’t think that it will be necessarily easier to pay off your debts.

In conclusion, when you are investing, you should consider all of your circumstances.  If you are in debt, particularly with credit card debt, then don’t direct any of your money to investing.  Get out of debt first and then you can start investing your money.

The results are in for the Maine caucuses.  Well, kind of.  There are still some small ones left to go.  This whole primary process is really bizarre in some states.

It looks like Mitt Romney will win, with Ron Paul taking a close second.  Without the final results yet, Mitt Romney has approximately 39% of the vote to Ron Paul’s 36%.  Once again, Ron Paul has done considerably better than 4 years ago, this time about doubling his percentage.

It really is too bad that Paul could not come away with a win in Maine.  It’s not that it matters that much in terms of delegates, but the headlines and the subsequent momentum would have been nice.  While it is still amazing to think how far the libertarian movement has come in the last 5 years, the mood of the country still isn’t quite ready for a dramatic change in the status quo.

The status quo is war, government spending, government debt, government spying, government orders, government regulation, taxation, etc.  While many Americans say they want a balanced budget and less government, they are not prepared to support significant and specific spending cuts.  Too many people want to live at the expense of other people.

The biggest laugh is when I hear someone go off on people collecting welfare.  Then I hear that same person talk about his Social Security and Medicare.  Or perhaps they are younger and will talk about his kids attending government schools.  Look, I am not condemning people for collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.  They are just trying to get something back from all of the taxes they paid previously and are currently paying.  But we at least have to admit to ourselves that these are welfare programs.  It is not like all of the previous payroll taxes were set aside in private accounts for people.  They can only be paid right now by collecting current taxes or by running up debt and creating new money out of thin air.

So while the libertarian movement has made great strides, much because of Ron Paul and his message, we still have a long way to go.  With the coming economic storm ahead and with the open communication of the internet, I think we will get more people looking for answers over the next few years.  I think Keynesianism will be seen less favorably.  I think many people with an open mind will start to see libertarianism as an answer.

I hope Ron Paul stays in this race all the way to the convention.  As I’ve said before, the longer he stays in, the more time there is for people to hear his message.

European “leaders” are going to kick Greece’s can down the road again.  They are working on negotiations to hand over another 130 billion euros (about $170 billion) in bailout money.  According to this article, they are giving Greece until next week to find an extra 325 million euros ($430 million) in savings.  Is that a typo?  They only have to find an additional 325 million euros, a fraction of a percent of the 130 billion in bailout money?

This whole Greece situation is a joke (although certainly not for people living there).  The European ministers are handing over more money to an insolvent government.  They are making European taxpayers and holders of the euro poorer.  They are essentially flushing this money down a toilet.

I am really tired of the word “austerity”.  These politicians and media pundits over use the word and they abuse it.  For many, their idea of austerity is small cuts in government spending, coupled with large tax hikes.  Then they have the temerity to insist that austerity just isn’t working.

If Greece cut government spending and balanced its budget, then no bailouts would be necessary.  The problem is that they keep spending money that they don’t have.  The Greek government has made more promises than can be kept.

Greece could default on 100% of its debt tomorrow.  In fact, it should do this.  But the European “leaders” do not want this to happen, so they send more bailout money.  If Greece did a 100% default, then the government there would still be in major trouble.  It is not just the interest payments on the debt that are difficult to pay.  Again, it is all of the promises that have been made in the form of pensions and other welfare benefits.

The same situation would be true in the United States, except the U.S. government has its own central bank.  The Fed can always buy government debt, even if there are no private lenders available.  But if the U.S. government did not have the Fed and nobody wanted to lend money at low interest rates, then there would be a default on the debt and we would finally see massive cuts in spending.  The U.S. government is running yearly deficits that are close to $1.5 trillion.  If there could be no borrowing, then the government would be forced to cut spending by the amount of the yearly deficit.

The situation in Greece is horrible.  There is extremely high unemployment.  The crime has gone up.  There are people struggling to meet their basic needs.  Many rich people are fleeing the country, and who can blame them?

Greece is an extreme example of a democratic welfare state.  As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.  Greece has run out of money.  The many years of over consumption and underproduction has finally caught up with the people there.  All of these people who thought they could retire at 50 on a sweet government pension are now starting to realize that they will have to work again.  The people that are not accepting this fate will face much worse.  I can imagine that there is severe depression in Greece right now and I don’t mean with the economy.  I mean that the mood of the people is very down.

If Greece wants to solve a lot of its problems quickly, then the government needs to default on all of its debt.  It then needs to default on all of its promises to the Greek citizens.  All pensions and welfare must end immediately.  If they want to throw a bone to those over the age of 80, perhaps that could be afforded.  Everything else must be cut dramatically and immediately.  Regulations must be repealed.  Taxes must be lowered dramatically.  The government should set up something economically that resembles Dubai, Singapore, or Hong Kong.  If this were done, the economy would be on the road to recovery within a couple of years and you would see great gains in wealth and productivity shortly after.

The government of Greece is only going to free up the economy if it is demanded by the people.  The Greek people have been majorly abused.  They should not be bailed out any longer.  They must admit that their welfare state policies have been a total failure.  They must turn to economic liberty if they ever hope to have a decent standard of living again.

There were three states that had voting on Tuesday.  They were Colorado, Missouri, and Minnesota.  Rick Santorum won all three, two of which were basically a landslide.  In Minnesota, Ron Paul took second place, pushing Romney down to third.

It was an incredibly good night for Santorum.  It was an incredibly bad night for Romney and Gingrich.  It looks like the anti-Romney people who can’t support Ron Paul are turning away from Gingrich and towards Santorum.  Gingrich is almost done, unless there is some dramatic turnaround (which wouldn’t be far fetched in this roller coaster race).

It was a bad night for Romney too.  He is still the favorite to win, but his odds went down a little after the Tuesday sweep by Santorum.  Romney is no longer seen as a lock.  With Ron Paul and likely Santorum in this race for the long haul, it will be hard for Romney to get a majority of the delegates by the convention.

While Santorum’s philosophy disgusts me, it was still a positive thing for Ron Paul.  It slows down Romney and allows for Paul to push on with his message of liberty.  The longer that he has debates and a platform to express his views, the more libertarians there will be for the future.

Santorum really is disgusting.  He preaches religion and morality and yet he sees no problem in killing innocent people in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere.  He is pro-life when it comes to fetuses in America.  He is anti-life when it comes to foreigners.  You can’t even claim that it is just foreigners with a different religion, as there were many Christians who died in Iraq.  If Santorum has his way and bombs fly in Iran, then there will be Muslims, Jews, Christians, and others who will die as a result.

Of course, Santorum is also bad on economics.  He supported many of the big government policies of the Bush administration.  He supported more spending and more centralization of government.  He was also a big supporter of anti-liberty acts like the so-called Patriot Act.

Again, while I despise Santorum, I am happy he had his three-state sweep.  It hurts Romney and Gingrich and it allows Ron Paul to carry on with more momentum.  If Santorum somehow miraculously became the Republican nominee, Obama would wipe the floor with him, unless Obama does something really stupid in the next 9 months, which isn’t out of the question.

The next round of debates, starting in a couple of weeks, will be interesting.  There will be opportunities for Ron Paul to change more hearts and minds.

Gold has been quite strong lately.  As of this writing, it is close to $1,750 per ounce.  It had a big down day yesterday and then gained most of it back today.  I am quite bullish on the yellow metal right now, both in the short term and in the longer term.

My short-term bullishness for gold is tempered by the economic outlook.  If the economic outlook remains relatively good, or at least stable, as compared to the last few years, then I think gold will do quite well.  The one scenario I can see where gold would tumble is if the economy slips into another deep recession.  If that happens, then stocks will do horrible and gold will also probably do horrible, although probably not as bad as stocks.  Bonds would be the place to be if that happens, despite the already low interest rates.

I have been saying for the last several months that we might be in the midst of a mini boom cycle.  The Fed pumped in a lot of new money with QE1 and QE2.  Although most of this new money is being held by the banks as excess reserves, it can and will have its effects.  Perhaps it is starting to leak out into the economy.  Some of it may be going in to stocks and some in to gold.  While the government’s measure of price inflation is still relatively low, I can personally attest that food prices at the grocery store are going up at a decent clip.  The one sector that continues to go down in price (besides electronics, which is due to technology) is housing.

If you are waiting for another dip in the gold price to buy some, I wouldn’t wait any longer.  While there is certainly a threat of a deep recession and a strengthening dollar in the short run, that is not where I would put my money right now.  If your portfolio is low in its percentage of gold and other precious metals, then I would not wait.  I recommend a minimum of 15% in gold and gold related investments, just to protect yourself.  You should probably be higher than that though.  If you have about 20% in gold investments and another 5% in silver, platinum, and oil, then that should be a good hedge against inflation and uncertainty.

While I don’t like making predictions, I am going out on a limb on this one.  I think gold is likely to go over $2,000 per ounce in 2012, unless we have a deep recession.

You should be responsible for your own money.  You work hard for your money and you should guard over it.  While I am not completely against the idea of financial advisors, you should be warned of their capabilities.

Most financial advisors are Keynesians.  They believe that spending drives an economy.  While some are more to the left economically than others, even many of those who say they believe in free markets do not really understand free market economics.  By far, the biggest mistake that financial advisors make is that they do not understand inflation.

Inflation is an increase in the money supply, although the definition has been changed through the years by the statists.  Now inflation means a general increase in the price level, which is really the eventual result of an increase in the money supply.  Many financial advisors do not understand how big of a threat inflation is to an investment portfolio.  They think stocks will protect against inflation.  Most do not believe in a substantial holding of gold or gold related investments.

This is why you have to look out for yourself.  Even if you have an honest financial advisor who means well, he may not understand inflation.  He might not understand the possible ramifications from the government spending and debt and the previous monetary inflation that has taken place.  He might not understand just how big of a threat this is to your investment portfolio and to the average American’s standard of living.

Ron Paul has probably changed this slightly.  There are probably a few out there now who do understand this.  Unfortunately, most of these people probably work for a big financial company.  These financial advisors probably do not have much flexibility in devising their own portfolios for their clients. They are probably given formulas and certain criteria to follow.  It is actually a shame.

While most financial advisors may not understand free market economics, they are not necessarily useless either.  A lot of these people are quite intelligent and they may do a good job of analyzing individual stocks and mutual funds.  They may actually have a good track record in comparison to the broad stock market indexes.

If you are someone with a lot of money and you want a financial advisor to help you out, then you might be fine.  But be sure to take your own action in protecting against inflation.  You can be fairly certain that your financial advisor will not be buying a lot of gold investments for you.  Personally, I would just avoid financial advisors completely and manage your own money if you are knowledgeable enough to do so.