Open Letter to Federal Reserve

By William Nolan
Phoenix, AZ
Ladies and gentlemen of the Federal Reserve Board:

I would like an explanation as to how you feel that your recent actions concerning the national credit and mortgage crisis have any place in a free market system.

When will those who steer our nation's economy - those expected to be top economic thinkers and passionate defenders of American freedoms and opportunity - come to truly understand the simplest of economic concepts concerning a free market - that a free market, almost by definition, will always accurately represent the sum of its parts? Whatever happens in a free market occurs due to various accumulated forces and actions arising, ultimately, from a quite natural and fair system of supply and demand. Over time, those forces will play out naturally and automatically, with the market administering the most frighteningly appropriate justice all by itself.

Artificially "stoking" the system and arbitrarily rewarding certain elements of the system will (and must) arbitrarily punish just as many others. There is no way around this, so even though you may think that your interventions are for the overall good, it really is a simple matter to prove to yourself that this is not the case (and I would guess that each of you has done so at some point in your academic endeavors). For everything that you think you've just fixed, there is something else you've broken. And no piece could have been placed more accurately than it already was.

In today's market, bailing out the people who have attempted to "game" the system for matters of personal greed, and have ultimately found themselves beginning to pay the price, forcefully grates against the very idea of a free market, and unjustly punishes those who have been cautious, diligent, and have "played by the rules". Yes, I am sure that you, the members of the Federal Reserve, have considered these ideas. But you've nonetheless diminished their importance, and have somehow, deep down inside, convinced yourselves that simply considering them is enough to relieve the guilt of what you were about to do. Are "irregular circumstances", after all, really enough to warrant the kinds of things you've done (such as loading up the real offenders [criminals] with "free" money and bailing them out)? Inflating and devaluing U.S. currency for the sole benefit of the guilty and at great cost to the innocent is manifestly wicked, irresponsible, and treasonous. Is the "potential threat to the economy" really a good reason to continue to do the very things that caused the situation in the first place? The "threat" that you are trying to avert is precisely the most efficient and (all things considered) appropriate resolution to the current problems. It is the least of many evils.

You may delude yourselves into believing that you're helping people in trouble, but the truth is, you've proven yourselves to be out of touch with America, and incapable of truly understanding what has really been happening to America. There are millions of American citizens who have been suffering, day in and day out, and living far beneath their deserved place in society over the past 6 years solely because they were not selfish, greedy, and insensible enough to play the Ponzi mortgage game that you enabled. They refused to play the dangerous game, and admirably held back on some of their dreams and waited for the environment and economics to again make sense. Indeed, there was a certain sense of justice and righteousness that convinced them that ultimately they would be rewarded for their prudence. Now that economic fundamentals have begun to seep through the cracks and the house of cards is about to collapse upon the very people who built it (as it should), you've chosen to notice only the cries of these most guilty of parties (as I suppose they are the people closest to you), oblivious to the harsh burden borne by the rest of America. Compelled as you feel to thwart economic trauma, your greatest challenge and truest test of integrity at this historic moment will be to recognize that any measures enacted should bear the greatest respect to the innocent people of this country, and all necessary resources and restitution extracted from those most accountable.

Consider for a moment this reality: the people you are helping now are exactly the people who caused the problem. These people did not get where they are without very directly harming many, many others. Much of what they have (or more accurately, what they've leveraged) was strategically culled from others who better deserved it. They have long lived exuberant lifestyles off the sweat of others; for every penny they've enjoyed, someone else had to give it up. For every leisure they've had, someone less selfish and greedy has had to suffer. And now, quite directly due to the twisted socialist monetary policies you have been implementing, they will continue to suffer. What you're doing now is the worst kind of socialism possible: it would be bad enough to simply "take from the rich and give to the poor". But you are now not only taking money from those who have earned it and giving it to those who haven't, but are in fact rewarding criminals and gamblers, and quite literally "taking from the poor and giving to the rich".

I am in no way advocating to "take from" or punish the "rich". I am a staunch capitalist, and believe that all people deserve to reap whatever they can sow. I believe that while America is truly a "melting pot" of people and ideologies, it is nonetheless generally founded upon the ideals of freedom, including a free enterprise, capitalist market system. And as much as capitalism speaks for success, it speaks for failure: inhibiting either (while arguably acceptable at its greatest extremes) undermines and potentially devastates the system as a whole.

So go ahead and disregard this letter - go continue to fight for all that America doesn't stand for. But I am more right about this situation and your foul handling of it than any of you will ever be about anything as long as you live. And the scariest thing of all is that you can read this and know deep inside yourselves that I am correct, but will nonetheless continue along the same path and somehow convince yourselves that it is right.

There is a fundamental justice in life itself - one that you cannot manipulate or escape. Eventually it will descend upon on the Federal Reserve and each and every one of its irresponsible and ignorant executives. I wholeheartedly hope that every member of your board ends up living the kind of lives that millions of better Americans have had to endure for the past 6 years while awaiting the collapse of your ridiculous mortgage and credit game. These good people understood the situation far better than you did and long before you did - yet, ironically, you're deluded and vain enough to continue believing that you really know what's best for this country. Delusion, vanity, and utter ignorance are not the qualities that we need at the helm of our nation.