How the Federal Reserve Created an American Caste System

In 1913, Woodrow Wilson and his progressives promised that the Federal Reserve  would avert both depressions and inflation, while preventing the wealthy from controlling America’s financial markets at the expense of the poor.

More than a century later, it’s clear that was all a lie, and the Fed has helped create a permanent American underclass.

The Fed was designed to transfer wealth from the American people to the government, mostly through the hidden tax of inflation. But this process has prevented countless American families from being able to save and get ahead, because their savings are constantly losing value.

For two decades, the Fed kept interest rates artificially low to help finance massive government spending. When that spending reached unprecedented heights in 2020, the Fed intervened more drastically than ever, creating trillions of dollars and devaluing the currency.

Thus began an unparalleled transfer of wealth that continues to this day, and which has driven a wedge between different groups of Americans.

The painful inflation of the last three years has increased prices throughout the economy, distorting the signals that prices are supposed to convey to buyers and sellers. For example, the cost to own a median-price home today has doubled since January 2021, but it’s still the same house.

This phenomenon represents the monetization of housing, where a dwelling becomes a much better store of value than the currency, even if the real value of the house hasn’t improved.

Likewise, Americans’ earnings have increased substantially over the last three years, but not in the most meaningful sense — that is, what they can buy. Instead, the opposite has happened, and today’s larger incomes buy less.

What would have been a decent salary in 2019 is no longer enough to even get by in many places, and it’s certainly not enough to ever fulfill the American dream of homeownership.

A family earning the median household income can afford a median-price home in only a handful of major metropolitan areas in the entire country. In many cities, the cost to own a median price home exceeds the take-home pay from the median household income. Even if you didn’t spend a dime on other necessities such as food, you still wouldn’t have enough for your mortgage payment.

It’s truly a condemnation of the status quo when even those with seemingly high incomes cannot afford a typical house.

Worse, as prices continue marching upward, people can save less, making it harder to accrue a sufficient down payment. Even by the time a family reaches their goal, home prices have increased again, and they’re back on the hamster wheel, trying to save for an even larger down payment.

Meanwhile, inflation is steadily, though silently, taxing away the real value of the family’s savings as they sit in the bank.

This has left countless Americans as perpetual renters, with almost an entire generation of young people giving up on having the standard of living that their parents had. An artificial chasm has been constructed between those who already own capital, like housing, and the remaining Americans who can only borrow such assets, as they do by renting.

Similarly, many of those struggling to afford sharply increased rents are going deeply into debt to keep a roof over their head while those who locked in a mortgage with a fixed interest rate before both home prices and interest rates exploded have shielded themselves from one of the largest drivers behind the cost-of-living increases of the last three years.

Many homeowners could not afford to buy their same home today. The monthly mortgage payment on a median-price home has doubled since January 2021. Thus, even if two families have identical incomes, the one that bought a home three years ago has a nearly insurmountable advantage over the other family trying to do so today.

The Fed‘s monetary manipulations have financed trillions of dollars in federal budget deficits, but they’ve also created a permanent American underclass, something antithetical to the Founders’ vision for the country.

Class mobility is at the heart of the American dream, and the F ed  has turned it into a nightmare.

First published on The Washington Times .

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How to Repair the Key Bridge Without Breaking the Bank

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore came as quite a shock. After a massive container ship struck  one of the bridge’s pillars, the entire span quickly fell apart, costing several lives.

It’s hard to overstate the bridge’s importance , particularly for the automobile industry. In addition to handling 11 million vehicles per year, it provided a vital way for trucks to access the Port of Baltimore while avoiding the dense city core. The impact on the region will be felt for months, if not years.

The question is, what now?

President Joe Biden  has said  that the federal government would foot the entire bill for rebuilding the bridge and demanded  that Congress make it happen.

While the collapse came as a surprise, nobody should be surprised that Biden’s immediate response was to call for more federal spending.

Since taking office, Biden has signed trillions of dollars  of spending increases into law and imposed more than $700 billion  of additional costs through administrative decisions.

This reckless approach to budgeting has whipped up inflation  and driven the gross national debt to $34.6 trillion—about $265,000 for every household in the country.

Fortunately, it’s possible for Washington to help Maryland rebuild the bridge without driving the nation deeper into debt.

First, all officials must be clear that the cost of rebuilding should mostly or entirely fall on the owners and operators of the ship, even if the incident was purely accidental. While litigation on such an important matter could take time to resolve, taxpayers shouldn’t be responsible for the cost of a privately caused disaster.

Second, there’s no need for Congress to authorize new funding to begin the process of clearing the channel and rebuilding the bridge. In 2021, Congress passed a five-year, $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, the largest portion of which is devoted to roads and bridges.

Rather than simply adding to the long-term debt, Congress has many options to repurpose funds from the 2021 bill, including:

  • Canceling the administration’s $3.1 billion  grant to California’s wildly dysfunctional high-speed rail project.
  • Reducing federal spending on programs for low-priority, local-only infrastructure such as hiking trails, bike paths, and sidewalks.
  • Pulling forward highway and bridge funds from allocations for 2025 and 2026 so they are available for the project starting in 2024.

Then, if the federal or state government receive payment once litigation is settled, the proceeds could either be used to reduce the federal deficit or put back into infrastructure funds.

Congress and the administration can help reconstruction further by cutting burdensome red tape that adds delays and costs to federally funded projects.

These include mandates on labor , material procurementshippingport dredgingenvironmental reviews , and even “diversity and equity .”

While reforming or eliminating these outdated and ineffective laws would be preferable, a special exemption would be enough for now.

Washington has a longstanding bad habit of responding to every piece of bad news by reaching for Uncle Sam’s credit card. However, with federal finances quickly approaching a point of no return , responsible governance means looking for prudent solutions.

Bottom line: It’s possible to rebuild the bridge without breaking the bank.

©2024 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Democrats Claim Men ‘Don’t Compete in Women’s Sports’ as Stolen Athletic Titles Near 300

Does Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., really live in New York or an alternate universe?

People certainly wondered after a House Judiciary Committee hearing where the 76-year-old declared, “Men do not compete in women’s sports.” Is the president’s senility contagious or is Nadler living in complete denial of a global phenomenon that’s plunged communities into chaos?

Not only are men competing in women’s sports , they’re winning women’s titles—a fact Riley Gaines was more than happy to point out.

“Ironic he says this on the EXACT two-year anniversary of this photo being taken,” Gaines, the former University of Kentucky swimmer, posted alongside a picture of Lia Thomas  holding a trophy he never should have had the chance to race for. “This 6’4” man isn’t fooling anyone with any amount of common sense,” Gaines fumed. “2 years ago today, I had a fire lit under me and communists like Nadler continue to fuel it.”

And yet, Nadler was so determined to suppress reality that he actually moved to have evidence of the debate stricken from the record. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., had catalogued a number of times that biological boys had stolen girls’ titles and opportunities in the past several years.

The group SheWon  puts the number at an eye-popping 292 stolen first-place  podiums. “I ask for unanimous consent to submit for the record instances of men hijacking women’s sports and the various examples that we have demonstrating not only injuries that have been suffered by women as men have participated in girls’ sports, but also the women—the girls and women who have been affected by this, including Riley Gaines, when Will Thomas decided to join the … women’s swimming team in Pennsylvania,” Hageman requested .

Nadler, the committee’s ranking member, fired back, “I object to concluding these mistruths in the record.” Shocked, Hageman replied how telling it was that he didn’t want the facts included in the record—to which the New Yorker replied, “Men do not compete in women’s sports.”

That’s news to the 25  (going on 26 ) states that have stepped in to stop this madness from overtaking their girls at the pool, track, court, field, and gym. If it wasn’t happening, then this was sure a monumental waste of legislative time.

Slack-jawed, conservatives kept up the pressure, giving a passionate defense of girls and the opportunities, safety, and privacy they’re losing by this absurd introduction of men in women’s sports.

Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., showed a video montage of girls  who’ve been physically injured playing against biological boys in volleyball, field hockey, and basketball. From Massachusetts to North Carolina, members watched as girls screamed in pain, lost teeth, were carted off with head injuries. One of the victims, Payton McNabb , still suffers from blurred vision, partial paralysis, and memory loss.

We have examples, Spartz insisted, of “much stronger guys playing sports against biologically not-as-strong women.”

“Girls actually get hurt by biological males playing sports,” she argued. “I mean, it is really unbelievable for me that this is an issue that we cannot stand with women and girls on.” Instead, Spartz went on, “the other side tries to really deter the conversation in a different direction and divert it. … Let’s talk about how we are going to protect our women and girls.”

When the talk turned to privacy rights, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., joined Nadler’s delusion, claiming that men in girls locker rooms “is not a thing.”

Tell that to the 16 plaintiffs suing the NCAA . One of them, Gaines’ teammate and Southeastern Conference champion Kaitlynn Wheeler, describes in agonizing detail how they were put in a “fundamentally unfair situation that no student-athlete, let alone a teenage girl, should ever have to face.”

The collegiate sports body “did not simply make my teammates in the 100-, 200-, and 500-yard freestyle races face a biological male swimmer in the pool,” she insisted. “The NCAA also decided that Lia Thomas, a 6-foot-4-inch, 22-year-old transgender  swimmer with a male body and full male genitalia, would be undressing with us.”

She writes of that traumatizing experience in a new Washington Examiner op-ed :

The moment I realized Thomas would be sharing our most private space, I was engulfed by a whirlwind of emotions—shock, disbelief, horror. The sanctity of our locker room, a space that should have been ours and ours alone, was shattered without warning.

The presence of male genitalia in a space that was supposed to be safe, where we were vulnerable and exposed, was not just uncomfortable. It was a visceral invasion of our privacy and dignity.

Feeling my stomach churn as whispers turned to silence, I stood there, naked and exposed, not just physically, but also emotionally, grappling with a reality I couldn’t comprehend.

The NCAA’s decision to transform our sanctuary into a ‘unisex’ locker room without our consent felt like a betrayal of the highest order. It was a stark reminder that our voices, our comfort, and our boundaries did not matter.

And yet, the effort to protect these girls is what Swalwell called “creepy”—not forcing innocent teenagers to share a room with a naked man. That’s what really stings, the girls say. No one has their backs. As so many female athletes admitted to Senate Republicans, they feel helpless.

“This is kind of a theme that we got,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said of his committee’s investigation on trans inclusion  in sports: “‘Why am I even trying? I don’t have any hope whatsoever.’”

“Our voices as women were completely silenced,” another admitted.

Fortunately for Wheeler and the thousands of American daughters living this nightmare, Republicans do care. Over the objections of Democrats, conservatives on the House Judiciary Committee passed  the Protection of Women in Olympic & Amateur Sports Act—authored by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla.—on March 21.

To Wheeler, who watched Thomas stand on top of a podium meant for her sport, maybe it will mean the end of the silence of the adults in the room. “That silence spoke volumes of the injustice, pain, and anger brewing in the hearts of not just the competitors, but of every woman forced into silence by a system that refuses to listen.”

Until then, she vowed, women will “stand against the erasure of our voices,” whether or not this president or his party stands with them. “We demand a future where female athletes are respected, where our safety and privacy are not just acknowledged, but fiercely protected.”

Originally published by The Washington Stand

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