The Federal Reserve has been ruining the currency for over 100 years. Now there may be a way to stop it. The Cato Institute has established the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. According to CEO John Allison the center will focus on the creation of a free-market monetary system in the U.S. “We have assembled a group of scholars and advisory board members who will challenge the Federal Reserve and the financial regulators in a way they haven’t been challenged in 100 years,” explains Allison. More from the press release here:
George Selgin, a Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Georgia and one of the foremost authorities on banking and monetary theory and history, gave up his academic tenure to join Cato as director of the new center.
“If there’s ever to be a serious attempt to come up with something better than the Fed, we must bury the myth that it’s our only hope” Selgin said. “We don’t want to turn back the clock to 1913, or to any other bygone era. But we do need to change the intellectual climate from the present one — with its hostile and ill-informed response to any suggestion that a monetary system consistent with the rule of law and genuine competition might be an improvement upon our present autocratic central bank.”
Allison, who grew BB&T from $4.5 billion to $152 billion in assets during his 20 years as CEO, was recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of the top 100 most successful CEOs in the world over the last decade.
“What I learned over my 40-year career in the banking business is that the more government micromanages lending and management practices, the less helpful real bankers can be to the lifeblood of the economy – small businesses and individuals,” said Allison.
