Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,
“It’s a big club…. and you ain’t in it.”
– George Carlin
Irony: The woman who is set to become one of the most powerful people in the world begins her confirmation hearing today. And few people have ever even heard of her.
It must be a byproduct of the government-controlled education system; people still think they live in a free country with a representative democracy. It’s anything but.
Voting, elections, etc. are all just illusions to make people think that they have some influence in society.
A tiny elite orchestrates the whole system. And one of the most influential conductors is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, a post about to be taken over by Janet Yellen.
Since most people have no idea how central banking really works, her confirmation hearing today is just a footnote.
Even people who are otherwise financially sophisticated simply trust that the men behind the curtain know what they’re doing.
This is quite strange when you consider that central bankers have nearly total control over the economy.
In their sole discretion, they are able to set interest rates, conjure money out of thin air, finance trillion-dollar government deficits, bail out commercial banks, etc.
And through these tools, they have the power to manipulate the prices of just about anything, from the Google stock to real estate in Thailand to turnips in Sri Lanka.
For the last several years, the US central bank has set the example for the rest of the world in aggressively using their policy tools.
Most significantly, they have unabashedly printed money in unprecedented quantities. And this has not been without consequence.
For some, the effects have been beneficial.
Rapid expansion of the money supply has pushed asset prices up all over the world. Stocks. Bonds. Many commodities. US Farmland. Artwork. Fine wines. Just about every asset class imaginable is near its all-time high.
People who are already wealthy have the available funds to invest in these markets. So their wealth has grown even more– exponentially.
The middle class, on the other hand, is experiencing an entirely different effect of money printing– retail price inflation.
And anyone who has been to a gas station, airport, university, doctor’s office, grocery store, etc. over the last few years understands this phenomenon very well.
A typical middle class family has little excess cash to invest after paying for rapidly increasing living expenses. Food. Fuel. Mortgage. Insurance. Etc.
And whatever wages or savings they have are being eaten away by inflation. So while the wealthy are getting wealthier exponentially, the middle class is actually getting poorer.
This explains why the wealth gap in the Land of the Free is the largest since 1929 at the start of the Great Depression.
Central bankers are responsible for much of this. In conjuring money out of thin air, they are benefitting one segment of society at the expense of another.
And with Janet Yellen at the head of the Fed, you can be sure that nothing is going to change.
Yellen has made it clear that she will continue to print unlimited quantities of money despite overwhelming data that such actions are ineffective and destructive for the the majority of the population.
Kyle Reese from the first Terminator movie sums this up rather succinctly here:
![](http://zerohedge.feedsportal.com/c/34894/f/645423/s/33b1409c/sc/30/mf.gif)
![](http://da.feedsportal.com/r/180264222860/u/49/f/645423/c/34894/s/33b1409c/sc/30/rc/1/rc.img)
![](http://da.feedsportal.com/r/180264222860/u/49/f/645423/c/34894/s/33b1409c/sc/30/rc/2/rc.img)
![](http://da.feedsportal.com/r/180264222860/u/49/f/645423/c/34894/s/33b1409c/sc/30/rc/3/rc.img)
![](http://da.feedsportal.com/r/180264222860/u/49/f/645423/c/34894/s/33b1409c/a2.img)
![](http://pi.feedsportal.com/r/180264222860/u/49/f/645423/c/34894/s/33b1409c/a2t.img)
![](http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~4/IbfuKyaELzc)
via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/IbfuKyaELzc/story01.htm Tyler Durden