Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. Quotes

In the United States we have, in effect, two governments ... We have the duly constituted Government ... Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated government in the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are reserved to Congress by the Constitution.

Bad as "independence" is, the main fault of the Federal Reserve System - an admirable system if conducted in the public interest - is that too much power and control rests in the hands of people whose private interests are directly affected by the Federal Reserves' actions.

The Open Market Committee, as presently established, is plainly not in the public interest. This committee must be operated by purely public servants, representatives of the people as a whole and not any single interest group. The Open Market Committee should be abolished, and its powers transferred to the Federal Reserve Board - the present public members of the committee, with reasonably short terms of office.

If Congress wanted to intervene with the Federal Reserve, well, we created the Federal Reserve. We could uncreate it. But would you want Congress regulating the money supply? We'd have drowned in inflation, or gone bankrupt, decades ago.

The Federal Reserve Act requires the Federal Reserve to report annually on its operations and to publish its balance sheet weekly.

The Fed's independence is critical.

The organization of the government itself is something which we ought to examine in a more self-conscious way - the Federal Reserve and the Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The mission that each of them has is mainly economic but should be informed by good organizational practices.

The Federal Reserve Board is indefensible in theory and indispensable in practice.

Tell the President [Jimmy Carter] not to appoint [Paul A.] Volcker [as Federal Reserve Chairman.] If he appoints Volcker, he will be mortgaging his re-election to the Federal Reserve.

I want to be completely clear that I strongly oppose 'Audit the Fed.'

This is very intriguing to think we should audit the Fed, but I discovered that probably if they audited the Fed, it would get a clean bill because it's undoubtedly doing exactly what it's supposed to do according to the law.

Unlike the days of the gold standard, it is impossible for the Federal Reserve to go bankrupt; it holds the legal monopoly of counterfeiting (of creating money out of thin air) in the entire country.

The New York Federal Reserve is a tool of the big banks.

The Federal Reserve... is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up.

There is no entity in the world that controls our lives more than the Federal Reserve System

There is an enormous thrust in our time to have a simple answer. And that simple answer is that all depends on Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. And Alan, who is an old acquaintance of mine, is a marvelous performer in the impression he gives of enormously great perception.

The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.

The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes - excusable or not - can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic - this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.

The power to determine the quantity of money... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power.

In the past, Federal Reserve chairmen have not generally gone directly to the public.

The Federal Reserve has a responsibility to ensure the safety and soundness of financial institutions and to contain systemic risks in financial markets.

The job of the Central Bank is to worry.

Who controls the issuance of money controls the government!

The Fed's policy choices can always be debated, but the quality and commitment of the Federal Reserve as a public institution is second to none, and I am proud to lead it.

The Congress has had an uneasy relationship with banks and bankers since Alexander Hamilton. It took the United States until 1913 to set up a central bank. The Federal Reserve earned its hard-won independence over years of effort.