Today's New York Times has an Op-Ed piece by Roger Altman, formerly with Lehman Brorthers, Blackstone Group, and the U.S. Treasury, regarding the role of the Federal Reserve in the current financial crisis. This article deserves critical scrutiny by every American. Here are some key excerpts:

SMALL rallies notwithstanding, we are experiencing the most dangerous financial period since the 1930s. In the year since this crisis erupted, huge losses have threatened the solvency of our largest financial institutions. As a result, the Federal Reserve has been forced into increasingly difficult emergency actions, including the rescues of the investment firm Bear Stearns and the mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to prevent the entire system from collapsing.

Our entire regulatory system, conceived long ago for a different financial world, must be rebuilt. The next president will have no choice but to undertake this task next year.

The next president must first create a single framework for the major financial borrowers, administered by the Federal Reserve alone.

It usually takes a severe crisis to bring about systemic change. The upside to the punishing turmoil in our financial system is the growing probability that regulatory overhaul is at hand. And that’s good, because without it the Fed might be unable to save the system next time.

I agree with two of Mr. Altman's key points: our current position is dangerous and unsustainable, and that the regulation of our monetary and financial system, based upon the Federal Reserve's monopoly of our debt-based currency, must be rebuilt.

I disagree, however, with the assertion that we need to further centralize power in the Federal Reserve. As noted by many, including Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning and Texas Representative Ron Paul, the Federal Reserve and the banking system that controls it are the cause of our systemic risk. Even the Federal Reserve's own Harvey Rosenblum emphasizes that the Federal Reserve's job is to create moral hazard, which enables systemic risk:

Rosenblum: The Federal Reserve is in business to create moral hazard. The mere act of being a central banker means that your job description involves creating moral hazard. A central bank is a “lender of last resort,” what more moral hazard can you have than having a lender of last resort that people know, when push can to shove, can be relied upon? The Federal Reserve’s job is to cushion the blow to 300 million American citizens of all the economic shocks that hit out there. What drives me crazy is when I hear people shouting “Moral hazard, moral hazard”… that’s what my job is to do…

Of course, it's a bit disingenuous to say that the Fed's job is to "cushion the blow" when the Fed threw the brick that caused the economic shock.

Gary Larson's classic Far Side cartoon says it all. The Federal Reserve has heaved a gigantic brick through the window of our nation's economy. Jobs are getting scarce, retirement savings and housing values are declining, and basic necessities are less affordable. Using the current crisis as an opportunity to further empower the Federal Reserve at the expense of the people is not the answer.

We need to restart past conversations, and restore a Constitutional money and banking system that removes moral hazard from the equation entirely. We cannot allow a private monopoly to create money out of nothing to loan to us at interest. The Federal Reserve is welcome to compete in a free market, but accepting private debt-based currency should not be compulsory -- it should be voluntary, and other forms of money that facilitate trade and local economic growth should be welcomed.

Alan Greenspan noted that our money system is not a free market -- the power over our money is centralized in the hands of the Federal Reserve. That fact, along with the Federal Reserve's support for the inherently unstable process of fractional reserve banking,  create the bricks that break our windows.

Our founders intended for our money and banking system to be democratized. Our ability to create wealth in our communities is one of our unalienable individual rights. The government is only authorized to establish a level playing field with accurate "weights and measures." In particular, Congress was given the authority to coin money, and regulate its value -- it is not authorized to delegate monopoly authority over our money to a private central bank.

Since 1913, however, our money comes from a monopoly run for the benefit of private banks. The banks have the power to create money through debt, and the people and our governments thus accumulate debt instead of wealth.

Please help us teach David Price the importance of debt-based versus asset-based money, and the importance of returning the power to create wealth to the people.