America Must Nationalize the Federal Reserve — It’s The Single Most Important Issue Facing the Planet
1976 — DEATH OF PAUL DOUGLAS, ECONOMIST, US SENATOR, QUAKER
A prominent University of Chicago economist, Douglas was one of several economists who developed A Program for Monetary Reform in 1939. It was sent to President Roosevelt as a proposal to end the Great Depression. More than 230 economists from 150 universities approved it without reservations while an additional 40 supported it with some reservations.
In assessing the problem of the day, the PMR states, “If the purpose of money and credit were to discourage the exchange of goods and services, to destroy periodically the wealth produced, to frustrate and trip those who work and save, our present monetary system would seem a most effective instrument to that end.” It also stated monetary systems based on a gold standard “has had…disastrous results all over the world.”
The PMR called for government creation and maintenance in the quantity of money. “Our own monetary policy should…be directed toward avoiding inflation as well as deflation, and in attaining and maintaining as nearly as possible, full production and employment.” The plan also called for eliminating fractional reserve lending — the process of banks loaning multiple the times the amount of money in their possession. Back in the 1930’s the reserved requirement was 5:1. Today it’s 9:1. Some of the major banks involved in the economic collapse of 2007 had ignored this law and were loaning out 50 times their reserves. The PMR called for a 100% reserve requirement — banks could only lend the amount of money they possessed.
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