Ron Paul: "I now call the Fed the fourth branch of government."

In several interviews and speeches recently, Dr. Paul has pointed out that the Fed is a "branch of government." For example here: http://www.youtube.com/wa... and here: http://www.youtube.com/wa...

It's great that Dr. Paul is helping dispell the popular myth that it's a private business. We're all taught, from grade school on up in Social Studies, Civics and American Government classes that the Fed is a private institution or private-government hybrid. It's in EVERY school textbook that discusses the Fed. But, the reality is that there is very little about it that resembles a private business. It's time to wake up from that deception. The Fed, is as Dr. Paul calls it, a "fourth branch of government," - not a private bank.

Incidentally, this is why it should be audited - because it's a branch of government. If it were a private business, it should be left alone, like government should leave all businesses alone in accordance with the principles of laissez-faire. That it's a "branch of government," is the only justification to audit it.

The problem with the Fed is that's NOT a private business - not a capitalist enterprise. To the contrary, it functions as a socialist arm of the government.

Let's PRIVATIZE THE FED! To privatize the Fed, you have to eliminate the legal tender laws. The legal tender law is how the government prevents other producers of money from competing. It's how the government maintains monopoly control over the money supply, which serves as the lifeblood of big government. Abolishing legal tender law would release the Fed into the market, where it would have to compete with other producers of money (as per the Austrian economics support for private market-produced money).

Also, with privatization, it would be allowed to keep its own profits, unlike now where it turns over all its profits to the Treasury to fund the welfare/warfare state. Without the monopoly control of money by the Fed, the government would lose the largest funding source - both from profits transferred from the Federal Reserve branch of government to the Treasury as well as debt monetization services - for welfare, war, and other forms of government growth and waste.

And of course, to fully privatize it, the President of the U.S. would no longer be allowed to appoint who heads it, and Bernanke's salary would no longer be capped by Congress. Finally, the dividend rate paid to those who purchase stock would no longer be set by the government at 6%, but set autonomously by the board of directors in response to the market.

If we privatized the Fed, it would no longer have the ability centrally control the money supply, and the Treasury would lose the ability to steal our wealth through having the Fed monetize the debt and inflate the money supply. This would cause the growth of government to come to a halt - resulting in the expansion of freedom. The Fed would become a truly private institution, which could only survive if it could compete in the marketplace.

If we privatized the Fed, it would no longer be a central bank and central economic planner, but just another business. It would no longer be a branch of government. Then, and only then, would it be "as Federal as Federal Express."

Let's privatize the Fed.