In 2018, I wrote an article titled: Confirmed: Industry Self-regulation is a Myth to document how the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve (arguably the world’s most important bank), Alan Greenspan, admitted to Congress that free markets cannot regulate themselves.

Greenspan told Representative Henry Waxman (D) from California:

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organization, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.“

We are now in 2022 and we have a new Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. His name is Jerome Powell and he made another glaring admission for all to read.

In a press conference on May 4, 2022, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve said his goal is “to get wages down” because workers have too much power in the labor market!

Here’s the transcript published by the Wall Street Journal.

Here’s are some excerpts:

“Employers are having difficulties filling job openings, and wages are rising at the fastest pace in many years,

…

Implications for inflation. Really the wages matter a fair amount for companies, particularly in the service sector. Wages are running high, the highest they’ve run in quite some time.

…

So I guess I would say it this way. It’s—there’s a path. There’s a path by which we would be able to have demand moderate in the labor market and have—therefore have vacancies come down without unemployment going up, because vacancies are at such an extraordinarily high level. There are 1.9 vacancies for every unemployed person; 11½ million vacancies, 6 million unemployed people.

…

So in principle, it seems as though, by moderating demand, we could see vacancies come down, and as a result—and they could come down fairly significantly and I think put supply and demand at least closer together than they are, and that that would give us a chance to have lower — to get inflation — to get wages down and then get inflation down without having to slow the economy and have a recession and have unemployment rise materially. So there’s a path to that.“

Pause and think about these comments for a minute. This is, simply put, a public declaration of class warfare!

No conspiracy theories necessary. The ruling elite have always been very public about their intentions.

Since we’re on the subject, here are a few comments from the great Adam Smith explaining how it all works:

Book I, Chapter VIII, Pg. 80:

“We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of the workman. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject.“

Book I, Chapter IX, Pg. 117:

“Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people.“

Book I, Chapter X, Part II, Pg. 152:

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.“

Book I, Chapter X, Part II, Pg. 168:

“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favor of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favor of the masters.“

Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, Pg. 292:

“The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.“

Book I, Chapter XI, Part III, Conclusion of the Chapter, Pg. 292:

“The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.“

Book IV, Chapter I, Pg. 469:

“When the profits of trade happen to be greater than ordinary, over-trading becomes a general error both among great and small dealers.“

Book V, Chapter I, Part III, Pg. 820.

“Though the principles of the banking trade may appear somewhat abstruse, the practice is capable of being reduced to strict rules. To depart upon any occasion from these rules, in consequence of some flattering speculation of extraordinary gain, is almost always extremely dangerous, and frequently fatal to the banking company which attempts it.“

You can learn more about real Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in my article titled: Adam Smith’s Division of Labor – “stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become”

Thanks for reading,

Notes:

Powell was first appointed Fed chair by Donald Trump in 2018. On May 23, 2022, he started his second four-year term, after being re-nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed in a landslide bipartisan Senate vote of 80-19.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-fed-chief-powells-postmeeting-press-conference-11651696613