Posted on 05/15/2010 9:43:35 PM PDT by rabscuttle385
It doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that the measure to audit the Federal Reserve is coming under continuous fire from the central bank and its cronies. For the first time since the Federal Reserve was created nearly a century ago, they have hired an actual lobbyist to pound the pavement on Capitol Hill. This is a desperate effort to hang on to the privilege of secrecy and lack of accountability they have enjoyed for so long. Last week showed they are getting their money’s worth in the Senate.
At the very last minute on the floor of the Senate, supposed compromise language was agreed to and substituted in the Sanders Amendment to the Financial Reform Bill. This language was acceptable to the administration, committee leadership, and to the Fed. The trouble is, while it is better than no audit at all, it guts the spirit of a truly meaningful audit of the most crucial transactions of the Fed. In fact, rather than still calling the Sanders Amendment an audit, maybe it should instead be called more of a disclosure at this point.
The new language of the Sanders Amendment requires a one-time disclosure from the Fed of 13(3) facilities, foreign currency swaps and mortgage-backed securities. Basically, their sins of the past would be revealed and Americans would know more about who got bailed out by the Fed and under what terms. This would be good, but it's not nearly enough.
Taxpayers are sick and tired of bailing out privileged, dysfunctional institutions that should be allowed to fail in order to stop their ability to wreak havoc on our economy. Perpetuating these corporations at taxpayer expense is not just wasteful, it is actively harmful. It would be good to know what went on in the past, but what about accountability in the future? A one-time disclosure now will not do us a lot of good down the road when the cycle repeats itself and friends of the Fed find themselves in trouble again.
More importantly, agreements with foreign central banks are not touched by the new Sanders Amendment language. At a time when Greece, Portugal, Spain and other countries are experiencing dire financial crises and have their hands out to the international community, we need to know if our Federal Reserve is at all involved in bailing them out. As weary as we are of bailing out companies, the American people would not stand for bailing out entire countries. Our government is wasteful enough in its own affairs without contributing to the waste of other countries. Yet the Fed currently has the tools it needs to do just this, and to do it in secret.
If we cannot take away the Fed’s ability to waste trillions of taxpayer dollars on failing companies and failing countries, at the very least, we can take away their ability to do this with no transparency or accountability to the American people. While the Sanders Amendment no longer contains a full audit, Senator David Vitter has introduced an amendment which contains the Audit the Fed language that passed the House last fall. The Senate must pass the Vitter amendment for full disclosure and full accountability going forward.
Paul’s off his meds! < /S >
You can’t audit the Fed without destroying the Fed. They would be under such market pressure while at the sametime (due to the political uproar over their balance sheet) they would lose their independence. I don’t even want to think what that would do the global economy.
Can I ask what your position is? Do you think they should be held accountable. Yes or No?
Too big to fail.
Too big to audit?
Of course they should be. They have done great damage to this country and the world at large. Private entities enriching themselves at our expense.
At the same time there is no way I would want to live through a sudden opening of the books. It has to be done in steps.
My personal position is that this won’t happen. If “we the people” cared that much we wouldn’t have let it get this bad. The other year at a work function I was talking to people about how TARP was the worst thing I’d seen in my adult life and my friend pulled me aside to tell me I was scaring folks. If our government can pull moves like that and people are afraid to talk about it, let alone do anything about it, then what?
Kick it under the rug then.
Maybe Greece can bail us out.
**Paul’s off his meds! < /S >**
or they gave him the Wrong ones.!!
**You can’t audit the Fed without destroying the Fed.**
And then the control of the Money Supply goes to CONGRESS. Which IMHO is the most STUPID thing that could happen... and Only a PAULISTINIAN is STUPID ENOUGH to think handing to congress, the Budget, IRS AND the money supply is a good idea!!
Ron takes a a five minute break from eating road kill barbeque to notice us.
Good boy Ron!
You nailed it! I understand some of Paul's concerns; these can be dealt with with appropriate legislation. The US could pull out of the IMF. There could be a law written that all bailouts need to be fiscal decisions, and so forth. Given the political nature of DC right now, absolutely no good can come of an audit of the fed. Something, real or not, will be found, the dems and MSM will beat a continual message that "it" is evil, and the fed will come under the auspices of Congress or the Treasury Dept.
I would say that having those that make fiscal policy not be involved in monetary policy is a very conservative approach. Totalitarian governments and many socialist governments almost always have fiscal policy and monetary policy rolled up into one decision making body.
In case you have not noticed, Obama wants the banking system, and this includes the Fed.
Post planning is advisable IMO. Where are you kicking this can to? It is less comfortable to deal with it, granted.
I’m going to push for more sunshine laws. If it takes putting audio and video recording devices in very hook and cranny in every corner of every room in Washington, so be it. There will be so much light it will make the streets of London look like the dark side of the moon.
STOP YOUR OUT CONTROLL SPENDING.
The audit is but a small piece of the Financial Reform Bill. This bill has hooks in it for banks to be "assumed" by the federal gov't. Obama has made several statements that the Fed needs to be more closely aligned with the goals of congress and treasury.
Now, remember what the MSM, with the help of the Obama administration, has done to Toyota, Goldman-Sachs, Wall Street, BP, the oil industry, GM, the US auto industry, and so forth. They find a "flaw", blow it out of proportion, demonize the "owner" and then regulate or take it over.
An audit of the Fed will find something that someone, somewhere does not like. It will be blown out of proportion, further demonized and, with the blessing of the populace, will be regulated, or taken over, by the gov't.
Instead of doing this, simply write a few laws telling the fed what it cannot do. Put the onus on the dems to define what they want -- not simply sit back like a Monday Morning quarterback and criticize.
Post planning is advisable IMO.
Good advice. You might wish to follow it too.
Too big to fail.
Too big to audit?
Too big to trust.
I stand by the “sick” adjective. You want this hidden.
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