Americans want Fed controlled
More than half of Americans say they want to rein in the Federal Reserve, says a poll. The Bloomberg National Poll showed that 39 per cent of all Americans want the Fed to be more accountable, while 16 per cent want to abolish the Fed altogether. Republicans and independents are generally sympathetic to ending the Fed. The November mid-term election brought 242 Republicans into the House of Representatives, the largest margin since 1928. Most Americans are also unhappy with the perceived expansion of the US Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve trebled its balance sheet during the financial crisis of 2008. Its second round of quantitative easing may add $600bn to the balance sheet. The Fed was created in 1913 to stabilise the supply of US dollars. The US did not have a central bank for the preceding 83 years. The survey interviewed 1,000 US adults, with a margin of error of 3.1 per cent.