Do not get me wrong, I understand the necessity for journalists to be able to keep their sources confidential, but modern American journalism lacks the same ethical support system as academia. Examples of this support system are institutional review boards, a culture that stigmatizes the use of unethical practices, and peer reviewed publishing processes for disseminating work. Last time that I checked the field of journalism had none of these checks and a journalist eventually only had to answer to the editor. There are very little to no limitations on what can be reported in the media as well as how that information can be gathered (as seen recently by the News of the World phone hacking scandal).

Another major point that would make academia better suited for legal source confidentiality than journalism is that the majority of journalists are employed by giant media conglomerates. From this it would seem sensible to draw the conclusion that their loyalty lies with their employer, and thus profits, when making ethical decisions.

Academics are not all saints either and many academic institutions are more like corporations than sites of higher education. However, when placed next to one another it seems clearly sensible that if the law protects the confidentiality of journalism sources than it should also protect the confidentiality of social research sources.

-Voltaire

Income Inequality in International Perspective

]]> http://thinksocially.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/income-inequality-and-the-united-states/feed/ 1 thinksocially http://thinksocially.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/the-fed/ http://thinksocially.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/the-fed/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:36:50 +0000 thinksocially http://thinksocially.wordpress.com/?p=80 Continue reading →]]> TIME Magazine has recently named Ben Bernanke 2009 Person of the Year for his role in leading the country out of financial hardship. For those that don’t know Bernanke is the Chair of the Federal Reserve which is a privately owned bank that controls many aspects of the U.S. monetary policy. As I will show in a minute this institution has been a blight on our country’s existence since its inception in 1913.

To understand what is happening we must first examine the history surrounding this topic. Starting in 1791 the U.S. government, which had finally mustered enough power to enact it’s own financial policies, set up multiple private federal banks in the image of the Bank of England. The first of these banks ran from 1791-1811 and was eventually shut down because of fervent opposition to such an exploitative form of monetary policy. It was argued that since the bank was privately owned the interests of it as a business would supercede its duties to the American public. In 1816 the second privately owned federal bank was created to fend off inflation caused by the War of 1812. As time passed the age old saying “power corrupts” took hold and the freedom that such a private bank experiences became clear to its Board. In 1836 Congress revoked the bank’s charter as the national bank due to corruption and it soon went into bankruptcy. Following this streak of bad national banks the U.S. government decided to regulate policy from within through the Independent Treasury System. Ups and downs caused market insecurity and as the memories of the consequences of the national banks faded the more the benefits they could provide were championed. When the New York Stock Exchange fell almost 50% in 1907 it scared enough investors to prompt the proposal of a new national bank under the Federal Reserve Act. It was proposed by Nelson Aldrich, who clearly had a conflict of interest in the matter due to his banking connections, and met much opposition in Congress. It was passed but only after minor changes attempting masquerade the move as in the best public interest claiming that what happened in 1907 would never be able to happen again. To the contrary just a few years later the Great Depression reared its ugly face. On a side note it is interesting to read about what financial juggernauts made movements right before the Great Depression if you are interested in it’s causes. Most modern economists agree that the Federal Reserve was a root cause of the Great Depression and did not succeed in it’s sole reason for existence, including Bernanke.

Through the last century the Federal Reserve has only gained power in it’s ability to regulate markets and the cost has been the financial freedom of the average citizen. My research is focused on the ability of the Fed to adjust inflation through interest rate manipulation and injections of liquidity into the market. Inflation, as any Intro to Economics professor will tell you, is an indirect tax on the American people. By creating inflation the Fed can decrease the value of what an individual is holding and increase the value of their own holdings. To demonstrate let us say you have $1 and the Fed has $1 (Yes, the Federal Reserve has it’s own wealth and is allowed to invest just like a person or corporation; remember it is privately owned and realizes a profit). The total economy consists of $2, you own half and the Fed owns half. Since the Fed is allowed to print money let us now say they print $8. Now the total economy is $10, you own 1/10 and they own 9/10. The total value of the economy doesn’t change when you do this, so to the rest of the world the inflation that has just taken place makes your dollar worth 1/5 of what it was worth before the Fed caused inflation. By doing this the Fed has not only created more money for itself, but has also usurped 4/5 of your wealth in the process. Now this is a basic example of how inflationary practices work and it is much more complicated than this, but the principles are clear. Through this we can clearly see that the Federal Reserve is one of the most powerful economic forces in our lives.

Ben Bernanke is a firm proponent of aggressive inflationary practices as he has laid out in the Bernanke Doctrine. Recently we have seen these tactics employed with the Fed giving billions to private banks around the country. From what I have shown here I feel it is safe to say that our country does much more to redistribute wealth back to the top than the popularly held misconception of the opposite.

R.N.C. Votes Down the ‘Democrat Socialist Party’

Plus, we are flattered but we already have a party. Thanks!