Dr. Rasmus reviews the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike decision this past week, showing how the Fed’s justifications for the rate hike based on ‘data’ are contradictory. How the data show no hike was justified. Rasmus explains how the Fed has been manipulating reporting the data on prices, unemployment and wages in order to justify 8 years of zero rate borrowing by the banks—i.e. 7 years after the banks were fully bailed out in 2010. More than $15 trillion in virtually free money was provided by the Fed to bankers and investors since 2009 as a result. Rasmus also addresses the Fed’s announcement this past week to begin selling off its $4.5 trillion balance sheet, but explains that will be token and temporary. Rasmus predicts the Fed’s recent string of 3 rate hikes has reached its limit now that the US economy is weakening once again.  The second half of the show returns to the theme of ‘Central Banks at the End of Their Ropes’ and the origins of the Fed as a creation of the private banks, a corporation funded by and run by the private banks. (Next week: The Fed under Greenspan and Bernanke).