Help me RPF I'm writing a paper...how does the Fed cause immorality?

[Ben Bernanke]

So I'm up late procrastinating on a term paper for my business ethics class.

Luckily, my professor is a pronounced follower of Austrian economics and is a self described libertarian. I need to write a 2000 word argumentative paper on basically any business ethics topic I choose. Technically it's a philosophy class, so philosophical and deductive logic arguments are welcome.

So I've tentatively chosen to discuss how the federal reserve system can cause people to act immorally in business

Now I distinctly remember a passage in Dr. Pauls book End the Fed about how easy money and credit can cause immorality and vanity in society, but I can't remember the exact wording. I let my friend borrow my signed copy and he lost it

Anywho, any ideas to get me started?

 

[mczerone]

(1) Lobbying for more handouts. The biggest players (big banks, pension funds, etc.) see that it makes more sense to spend resources to lobby for favors from the administration and the fed (bailouts, favorable lending rates, lending rules, restratification of asset classes, purchasing of bad debt, etc.) than serving their customers with market action.

(2) by manipulating the interest rate, actors in the market are incentivized to use their property in a manner that isn't environmentally sustainable nor socially useful. When interest rates are higher that the market would demand, physical production drops in favor of monetary investment in ultimately unsustainable structures of production and people will "rape" their resources for short term gains because the long-term use of these resources is discounted against the monetary returns they can get by ramping up extraction in the present. When they are lower than the market rate, new investments are not made in favor of running the current production structure - leading to a retardation of the technological development of industry and ultimately wasting resources.

(3) Revolving door between top firms and regulatory agencies

Hope these ideas help.

 

[tsai3904]

Here's an article of how low interest rates have exposed seniors on fixed income to fraudsters:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...d065dc-9c77-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html

 

[WhistlinDave]

The main thing that sticks out for me regarding your premise (causing people to act immorally in business) is the "free money" and bailouts given to "too big to fail" bankers. If they can just get hundreds of billions in help when they hit a rough spot, then this takes away any incentive for them to follow sound business principles and solid investment strategies. So they can just lose money (your money and my money, if we have it invested there) and the Fed will come along to bail them out.

Part of this requires lawmakers to cause the bailouts, but my understanding is the Fed loans out a LOT of money behind the scenes and they won't even tell us where it's all going. So I'm pretty sure the Fed does a lot of bailouts with autonomy too. (You might want to find a reliable source for that before saying it in your paper though. Some guy on Ron Paul Forums isn't a legitimate source for such a statement.)

 

[Ben Bernanke]

Thanks guys, all this has been helpful

Certainly the mere practice of inflating the money supply is immoral in and of itself, as its theft through stealth, but I'm not concerned about how what the Fed itself does is immoral.

Rather, I want to point out how the Fed causes immoral decisions in society and in business. Certainly the creation of a moral hazard by standing ready to bail out the banks and the Fed's cronies leading to risky behavior is one.

I specifically remember a passage in End the Fed of how the massive materialism and moral decay in our society can be linked to the Federal Reserve, if only I could remember how Dr. Paul put it

 

[Natural Citizen]

So I'm up late procrastinating on a term paper for my business ethics class.

Luckily, my professor is a pronounced follower of Austrian economics and is a self described libertarian. I need to write a 2000 word argumentative paper on basically any business ethics topic I choose. Technically it's a philosophy class, so philosophical and deductive logic arguments are welcome.

So I've tentatively chosen to discuss how the federal reserve system can cause people to act immorally in business

Now I distinctly remember a passage in Dr. Pauls book End the Fed about how easy money and credit can cause immorality and vanity in society, but I can't remember the exact wording. I let my friend borrow my signed copy and he lost it

Anywho, any ideas to get me started?

Well. Morality is a human phenomenon. Humans eat, they sleep, they walk, they talk and theoretically it is assumed that they are representative of, by and for themselves. Humans survive. They require literal nourishment. Now the fed is giving a short list of banks in excess of 40 billion dollars per month. That's per month. Each. Of course, anyone who is even remotely informed understands that these are the interests who speak the loudest and receive the most representation although you'll never hear the politicians ever mention it. They posess the gift of constitution. 1st amendment and on down the list. Citizenship. Theoretical people. But they exist solely upon paper. They do not eat, sleep, breathe, walk or talk. They require only nourishment that is created out of thin air. Growth, you could say. They can never starve. I suspect morality isn't something they possess either. Again...that's a natural phenomenon. Creating a non profit corporation for feel good and fuzzy notions isn't morality either. It's a business venture that is often used for political leverage.

As always, it comes down to citizenship. Citizenship get's the A on your paper. Although I kind of just babbled off. You could probably do better with some thought on it. Morality is a product of personhood. Natural personhood, that is.

 

[Zippyjuan]

People will be immoral. Having money or wanting money can be a reason for acting immorally but whether you use gold or fiat for the money will not make any difference. Comes down to the nature of people- not the nature of the money.

 

[Ben Bernanke]

People will be immoral. Having money or wanting money can be a reason for acting immorally but whether you use gold or fiat for the money will not make any difference. Comes down to the nature of people- not the nature of the money.

I understand, it ultimately comes down to personal responsibility. However to use an analogy, the Federal Reserve may not be actually pushing people off the cliff into immoral behavior, but it has indeed funded the creation of the cliff

 

[Ben Bernanke]

NOW SOMEONE HAS TO KNOW THE PASSAGE IN END THE FED IM REFERRING TOO

lol

 

[WhistlinDave]

NOW SOMEONE HAS TO KNOW THE PASSAGE IN END THE FED IM REFERRING TOO

lol

I hope you realize how freakin' hilarious it is that these posts are coming from you, with that name and profile pic. I'm sitting here cracking up!!!

 

[jmdrake]

So I'm up late procrastinating on a term paper for my business ethics class.

Luckily, my professor is a pronounced follower of Austrian economics and is a self described libertarian. I need to write a 2000 word argumentative paper on basically any business ethics topic I choose. Technically it's a philosophy class, so philosophical and deductive logic arguments are welcome.

So I've tentatively chosen to discuss how the federal reserve system can cause people to act immorally in business

Now I distinctly remember a passage in Dr. Pauls book End the Fed about how easy money and credit can cause immorality and vanity in society, but I can't remember the exact wording. I let my friend borrow my signed copy and he lost it

Anywho, any ideas to get me started?

Gee that's gotta suck. (Losing a signed copy of the book). Check your local library to see if they have a copy. Their might be an e-version. Ashamed to admit I haven't read the book. Long ago I thought about starting a liberty book club. I think that's an idea that needs revisiting.

 

[Sola_Fide]

NOW SOMEONE HAS TO KNOW THE PASSAGE IN END THE FED IM REFERRING TOO

lol

I know which one you're referring to. It is a great point that he makes which basically says that having the Fed in existence encourages an entire culture of debt, and destroys a society morally from the inside out.

 

[Sola_Fide]

People will be immoral. Having money or wanting money can be a reason for acting immorally but whether you use gold or fiat for the money will not make any difference. Comes down to the nature of people- not the nature of the money.

It is immoral to steal. That is what the Fed does.

 

[Dr.3D]

It is immoral to steal. That is what the Fed does.

And to make it worse, they steal mainly from those on a fixed income. They steal from old people who can't afford to be robbed.

 

[Ben Bernanke]

finished

wheww

 

[erowe1]

Interesting.

Your business ethics class really talks about immorality?

 

[Ben Bernanke]

Oh sure, it is categorized a philosophy class. All cultures have a basic sense of morality.

 

[erowe1]

Oh sure, it is categorized a philosophy class. All cultures have a basic sense of morality.

There's no doubt about that.

But not everyone admits that objective morality actually exists.