I don't necessarily buy your repudiation of Brown as a 'nutbag.' But let's say for a moment you're right.
Our current national debt is over $23 trillion, and is moving toward 77% of GDP.
In the face of this growing debt, in 2017 the Republicans passed the giant tax cut for their billionaire donors and corporations. No real need for it - the economy was already rolling along in expansion mode. But what it did is accelerate the buildup of deficits and thus addition to the national debt.
The ideology of neoconservatism calls for the buildup of an American empire, and the neoliberal mantra is 'deregulate, privatize and gut the New Deal.' It is. And the people who passed this tax cut - and I'm not talking about the 'know-nothing' tea baggers, but the congressional staff members who DO know - genuinely believe the only real role for the federal government is defense, national security, war.
The Chicago school of economics radicalized the primacy of the shareholder doctrine, and so popularized the (talk about a conspiracy theory!) idea of 'supply-side' or trickle-down economics that it has nearly completely undermined the New Deal, and worse, made the general public think of taxes as being 'bad,' somehow a government rip-off. Trickle-down, of course, has never, does not now, and never will work. It just doesn't. Instead it systematically moves wealth into fewer and fewer hands.
So, the Fed is involved in the control of money supply, and we are now in a superheated economy with a U3 unemployment rate that is currently 1.2% below what most economists consider 'full employment' which is defined as that state below which there is danger of inflation. And inflation IS happening. All over this country we see unaffordable housing, and in supermarkets what the Brits call 'shrinkflation.' How about that $4 loaf of bread?
Now, the wealthiest 0.1% of people in this country hold the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90%. The American middle class, once the envy of the world, has been nickel and dimed almost to extinction, the national debt is unsustainable, and programs millions of Americans are counting on - Social Security and Medicare - are in danger because of this decades-old and accelerating Republican transfer of wealth to billionaires.
Our system is so corrupt we can't even seem to hold fair elections, and corporate dollars are now considered 'free speech.' Not only has the national government lost its moral compass, but a third of this country is white nationalist in all but name. Trump's daddy wore the hood, for God's sake.
In short, HERETIC, the system we have is not sustainable. It is a house of cards that will end either in bloody revolution or with the very planet we live on becoming uninhabitable.
It isn't just the government's debt that is unsustainable, either. Consumer debt is growing out of control, and 2/3 of bankruptcies are due to medical debt. In my state, 733K people owe an average of over $30K in student debt, with an average remittance of $350 per month - money that cannot be used by our children to built their wealth or purchase goods and services.
So, HERETIC, we've made our people debt slaves. Our children debt slaves. Our government is so in debt that the very programs we count on to sustain us in old age are in danger.
You say the Fed is imperfect. Yes, it is. But it is only the tip of the iceberg. Our entire economy has gone the way of libertarian predatory capitalism. When once we steeled ourselves as a people for a sustained war on poverty, now it is every person for themselves and devil take the hindmost.
We already have fiat currency, HERETIC. We do. Whether the Fed is the central bank, or the central bank is run by the US Congress and prints greenbacks like Lincoln did.
I went online and looked at why Ellen Brown might be wrong and ran into a bunch of smug Wall Street newsletter types talking about hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. That isn't apples and apples.
Nonetheless, I could be wrong in proposing that the US government repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and take over central banking, printing enough money to pay off the national debt. At the same time a massive revision (increase) of taxes, with billionaires taxed at confiscatory levels, corporations such as Amazon actually having to PAY taxes, and the Wall Street arbitrage 'bots slowed down by a minuscule transaction tax on each 'trade.'
Because it isn't just healthcare. Social Security for our seniors. For every ten workers who lose their jobs due to technology, four workers have to be upskilled to run the technology. What about the other six? Most of the jobs at biggest risk for automation are lower skilled jobs requiring a no education - semi-skilled, low-wage work. How are those people living? Millions in this country are hungry at least once a month.
And the clock is ticking on climate change. It may be too late, but it may be we have a few short years left to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions so our kids don't need to go underground and breathe filtered air like a bunch of troglodytes. What did HG Wells call them? Morlocks?
Capitalism is killing the world, HERETIC. So, yeah, you can blithely dismiss me as some kind of tin-foil hat wearing nut job, but what ARE we going to do?
Yeah, we gotta get rid of trump and paint the country blue.
Then what?
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