Criticism
Controversy about the Federal Reserve Act and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System has existed since prior to its passage. Some of the questions raised include: whether Congress has the Constitutional power to delegate its power to coin money or issue paper money, whether the Federal Reserve is a public cartel of private banks (also called a banking cartel) established to protect powerful financial interests, and whether the Federal Reserve's actions increased the severity of the Great Depression in the 1930s (and/or the severity or frequency of other boom-bust economic cycles, such as the late-2000s recession).
Allegations that the Act was passed while most of Congress was away for Christmas on December 23 are not supported by the legislative history: The house passed the bill 298-60 with 76 not voting, while the Senate passed it 43-25 with 27 not voting, showing 70%-80% participation before accounting for announced pairs.
Read more about this topic: Federal Reserve Act
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Cubism had been an analysis of the object and an attempt to put it before us in its totality; both as analysis and as synthesis, it was a criticism of appearance. Surrealism transmuted the object, and suddenly a canvas became an apparition: a new figuration, a real transfiguration.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“... criticism ... makes very little dent upon me, unless I think there is some real justification and something should be done.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)