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percent, risk-free return on the capital they hold at the Fed in the form of
dividends.
Have you looked at your checking or money market bank statement
lately from JPMorgan Chase or Citibank? How about the statement
showing the interest you’re earning on your mortgage escrow account with
the big banks? While the country suffers through the lingering effects of
the Great Recession caused by the biggest Wall Street banks, the public
typically receives less than 1 percent on their deposits at the big banks,
while the government has legislated a permanent, risk-free 6 percent
guarantee to the Wall Street banks for their capital on deposit at the Fed.
Now that’s an entitlement program that needs to die!
The Fed requires that its member banks subscribe to “stock” in an
amount equal to 6 percent of their capital and surplus. The banks have
to post half that amount with the Fed upon becoming a member; the other
half is subject to call by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve in
Washington, D.C. The deposited capital entitles the bank to a
corresponding share of “stock” in the regional Fed. The stock is not like
regular common stock: it can’t be traded, sold, pledged as collateral, gifted
to family members, shorted, or aggregated to effect a takeover. It’s this
“stock” that’s receiving the risk-free 6 percent dividend from the Fed.
This corporate welfare program gets even better: if the shares of
stock were acquired prior to March 28, 1942, the 6 percent risk-free
dividend is tax exempt and the bank doesn’t have to pay corporate taxes
on it. Read More
A Double Standard of Justice: The War Crimes of a Sergeant,
the War Crimes of a Nation
by
Tom McNamara
Whatever grievances a nation may have, however
objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an
illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering
those conditions
— Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson,