Read full text: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/03/george-f-smith/the-worst-market-intervention-of-all-time/
The US had been without a central bank until December 23, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. It too facilitated funding when Congress voted to declare war on Germany in April, 1917. Using conscription, the US sent millions of American men overseas to join the slaughter, killing an estimated 115,000 of them.
The Fed helped keep the war going until the punitive Treaty of Versailles, after which Germans found Hitler appealing, and it created the bubble in the 1920s leading to the Crash and the Great Depression. With FDR in charge, gold was lost to a fiat currency managed by the Fed, spawning an age of inflation. According to the Richmond Fed, “By 1947, the Fed was summarizing its ‘primary duty’ as ‘the financing of military requirements and of production for war purposes.’”
If war could be considered a market intervention it would be the absolute worst intervention of all time. But wars are lucrative rackets to some and don’t go far without funding. Taxes alone can’t cover the costs of a long conflict without igniting a revolt. This is why governments need a central bank that can produce unbacked certificates quickly that governments declare to be money.
When prices decline more is demanded, and this includes the price of war.
The Federal Reserve: Worst Market Intervention in US History
The Fed is even worse than the income tax, which made its appearance in the same year with the corrupt ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment. Both funded US entry into World War I, one of the most catastrophic and groundless decisions in world history. But unlike the income tax, the Fed’s thievery is invisible to most dollar holders.
