IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF KANSAS Robert W. Love, pro se
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Plaintiff vs.
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The Federal Reserve Board of Governors, c/o Janet L. Yellen, Chairwoman 20th Street and Constitution Avenue N.W. Washington D.C. 20551 Defendant
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Case Number: 6:15-cv-1077
Memorandum in Support of Motion to Stay Case From October 15, 2013 through October 26, 2014, I, Plaintiff, sought a non-judicial response to the questions raised in the current Complaint through a series of letters addressed to the President, the Attorney General, Janet Yellen as Chairwoman of the Defendant, Kansas Senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran and Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo. Senator Roberts replied once, the Fed replied twice and nobody else replied at all. 1 In his October 29, 2013 reply, Senator Roberts, without addressing any of my specific substantive questions, simply said: “I am very concerned by a number of actions taken by the Federal Reserve over the past few years.. … I share the concerns of many Kansans who believe that the Federal Reserve has overstepped its mandate and may be harming the economy in the long term. The time is well passed for the Federal Reserve to be subject to full oversight by Congress.”
Senator Roberts’ concern caused me to ask if the standards Congress uses to judge the Fed’s actions were different than those a citizen could use. I then recalled a remark by columnist George Will in 2012, commenting on Chairman Bernanke’s monetary policies, in which he said: “Quantitative easing is the government printing money. It’s part of not mission creep, but mission gallop on part of the Fed, which is on its way to becoming the fourth branch of government — accountable to no one and restrained by nothing, as far as I can tell, in exercising both monetary and fiscal policy.” 2 1
All correspondence is attached as Complaint Appendix of Fed Correspondence.PDF.
2
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/16/george-will-fed-on-its-way-to-becoming-the-fourth-branchof-government/
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Was Senator Roberts patronizing or serious? Was George Will indulging in hyperbole or speaking in candor? Was Ben Bernanke’s claim that the Fed could print unlimited amounts of money to dump from helicopters a joke or a threat? It was at this point that I returned to read the Federal Reserve Act carefully and to ask the Fed some simple but pointed questions. Jean Durr, from the Federal Reserve’s Public Affairs Office, kindly replied to me twice in writing. The first time she [inadvertently?] admitted the very basis for one of my complaints by stating that “[t]he goal of monetary policy … is … noninflationary…” . When I questioned her assertion regarding the Fed’s policy on inflation, she backtracked in a second letter but still without making specific responses to my specific questions. In the absence of answers, I subsequently asked the Fed for “the legal rationale [or existing legal opinion]” on which the Fed was relying to justify its monetary policy actions, but the Fed ceased all reply. The fact of the matter seemed to be that even when I asked the Fed to provide [or reviewed its published statements to find] a clear explanation for its actions consistent with the language I found in the Federal Reserve Act, no explanation was forthcoming. And the most anybody else could say about the existence of limits on the Fed’s powers was that the Fed needed to be “overseen” by Congress as if Congress had some absolute but inarticulate power to determine monetary policy. Perhaps, George Will was simply stating the practical truth which nobody else was willing to admit. At the very least, transparency was an issue. The more I searched for answers, the more I discovered that others were asking the same fundamental questions and coming to many of the same conclusions I was. This is an excerpt from a March 2015 Swiss Re report entitled "Financial repression: The unintended consequences" which I recommend to the Court as a clear and succinct explanation and quantification of the motives and effects of current Fed policies without taking a position on their legality. “Why do central banks engage in unorthodox monetary policies? Key objectives include bringing inflation back to target, stabilizing financial markets and fostering economic growth. While the jury is still out on their success and ability to achieve those goals, one effect is clear: Low interest rates help governments to fund their debt. In other words, they are able to channel funds to themselves – referred to as financial repression. This type of policymaking comes at a cost. So far, central bankers have argued that the benefits of quantitative easing and other unorthodox measures outweigh the costs. However, exiting ultra-easy monetary policy will become harder with time and the unintended consequences will become more apparent. These include potential asset bubbles, a financial repression “tax”, increasing economic inequality, the potential of higher inflation and reputation damage for central banks. 2
The debate among central bankers on the potential unintended consequences of the “Great Monetary Experiment” has already intensified somewhat, in particular related to the implications for economic inequality. However, the focus on the topic remains rather tepid at best and more informed public policy discussions are necessary.” 3 And yet I found that even those who strongly shared my belief that the Fed had “gone too far this time” were resigned to the notion that “fighting the Fed” was futile, because
independent central banks are not legally obliged to follow any standards
but only to use their best collective and eclectic judgment
to pursue ambiguous goals which they are free to interpret, add to or subtract from
regardless of the results their policies produce over time.
I have come to attribute this unwillingness to attempt articulation of legally enforceable limitations on the Fed’s powers to
the reality that economics, because it is nothing less than the study of what Ludwig von Mises called “human action” 4, is very complex and often unpredictably dynamic,
the corresponding difficulty for anybody to prove [or disprove] any economic theory unless they have a long period over which to observe it at work in a real economy and
the tendency for most mortals, when faced with complexity and uncertainty, to avoid taking any [much less extreme] positions that might be seen as foolish in retrospect.
And yet, is it not the dangerous complexity and uncertainty of theoretical economic postulations which advises a prescient legislator in a society based on individual freedom with limited government to articulate basic, simple, continuous and measurable standards and goals which can serve as publicly accountable safeguards for otherwise autonomous actions influencing something as important as the currency we must all share across the course of our economic lifetimes? In this spirit, I have attempted to keep my Complaint [and the arguments and graphs in support thereof] within the context of basic economics, written law and published evidence [which I have derived from the Fed’s own St. Louis website]. The results of my efforts, for better and for worse, are set forth in the following attachments: 3
http://media.swissre.com/documents/Financial_Repression_pub_web.pdf
4
http://mises.com/library/human-action-0
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1. Complaint Appendix of Fed Correspondence – the chronological correspondence that gave progressive voice to my Complaint. 2. Complaint Abstract on the Purposes for a Federal Reserve – a brief attempt to ask why one might want a Federal Reserve within the context of the Real Economy and the nominal world of Monetary Intermediation. 3. Complaint Arguments – my best effort to number and state the successive Arguments which support my case. 4. Complaint Appendix of Graphs [graphs are in color] – my summary [with numbers corresponding to the numbered Arguments] of the official evidence I found in the St. Louis Fed’s website which supports my case. However, notwithstanding all the above as well as my continuing conviction, thus far at least, that my arguments raise important substantive questions of real damages, existing law and public policy, I realize the enormity [and, even to me, seeming impossibility] of what I am asking this Court to do. 5 The implications of a substantive finding against the Fed appear to be inconceivable, because
either my simple and obvious arguments must be [or have already been] interpreted as being without substantive merit under any set of facts and thus should be summarily dismissed
or we have, in fact [whether consciously or not], already passed the last point of noncatastrophic exit in this increasingly abnormal and addictive conduct 6 of American monetary and fiscal policy so that this Complaint must, as a political matter, become another “can” to be [procedurally or substantively] kicked down the road to be faced later, if ever. 7
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It is probable, if not certain, that, if the Fed were to return to and then follow the Act according to the plain meaning of the words in the Act, such a policy change would swiftly, and beyond any current doubts, bankrupt the Fed, the government, many banks and most leveraged speculators as credit driven, inflated asset markets worldwide crashed in chaos. Indeed, I would contend, it is this very fear that has prevented, and will continue to prevent, the Fed from voluntarily changing its current policies. The Fed, like every tyrant [benevolent or malevolent], has become a prisoner of its own policies. 6
To quote Simone Weil, "(e)vil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty." http://www.wisdomportal.com/Evil/Evil-SimoneWeil.html 7
There is a near certainty that Congress, if apprised that there are simple but serious questions about the legality of Defendant’s recent and ongoing actions, will, to prevent a state of emergency, take immediate bipartisan steps to moot any on-going questions that would be raised by a trial of this case. 4
Finally, and most important of all, I do not wish this “citizen’s case” to distract the Court from, or delay the Court in, its vital efforts in the hard, daily work of serving others where timely justice is more readily and reliably attainable. For all the above reasons, I respectfully request the Defendant to allow and humbly pray the Court to grant my motion for the Court to exercise its considerable discretionary power to stay this case and take it under judicial review, along with the various attachments filed herewith, until such time as the Court is able, at its convenience and in its sole judgment, to determine
that my claims have any possible merit as a matter of law and
that a trial of the facts in this case could result in a finding against the Defendant.
Granting this motion would not prejudice Defendant’s existing Motion to Dismiss, would relieve the Defendant from the need to take any further action in this case at this time and/or, in the Defendant’s discretion, would give the Defendant time to consider the Act and my Complaint in the light of all the arguments and evidence [other than detailed evidence in support of the amount of damages claimed] which I, as a simple citizen and not a sophisticated expert, can realistically offer or ever hope to offer in this case. It has taken me a lot of time to prepare my materials and it may take time for others to consider them before proceeding. In the end the primary issue in this case appears to be simple enough: if/how/when the few, plain words of the Act limit the many, broad powers currently claimed and exercised by the Defendant to my detriment.
__s/ Robert W. Love, pro se______ Robert W. Love, pro se as Plaintiff Dated: May 26, 2015 Attachments hereto: Complaint Appendix of Fed Correspondence Complaint Abstract on the Purposes for a Federal Reserve Complaint Arguments Complaint Appendix of Graphs [graphs are in color]
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