Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist, Says Federal Reserve System 'Corrupt' (Shahien Nasiripour)

Mar. 3, 2010 (Huffington Post) -- One of the world's leading economists said Wednesday that the very structure of the Federal Reserve system is so fraught with conflicts that it's "corrupt."

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank, said that if a country had applied for World Bank aid during his tenure, with a financial regulatory system similar to the Federal Reserve's -- in which regional Feds are partly governed by the very banks they're supposed to police -- it would have raised alarms.

"If we had seen a governance structure that corresponds to our Federal Reserve system, we would have been yelling and screaming and saying that country does not deserve any assistance, this is a corrupt governing structure," Stiglitz said during a conference on financial reform in New York. "It's time for us to reflect on our own structure today, and to say there are parts that can be improved."

Stiglitz made the remarks at a conference held by the Roosevelt Institute. He and other speakers, including Harvard Law Professor and federal bailout watchdog Elizabeth Warren and legendary investor George Soros, had bold ideas about reforming the nation's financial system.

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