You can tell from the home page that the first major topic we are pursuing at A Sound Economy.org is the Federal Reserve, the US Central Bank. It is a timely topic because of all the things the "The Fed" has done to try to counteract the numerous bank, brokerage, insurance, money market fund, etc., failures of the last 18-24 months. Also because of the legislation currently pending in Congress to institute the first true comprehensive audit of Federal Reserve activities since the bank was created in 1913. The Federal Reserve Transparency act, HR1207, has over 340 co-sponsors in the US House of Representatives. That is an unprecedented level of interest and concern in what has generally been considered an arcane topic. In the US Senate the sister bill, the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act S604 (you can follow it at http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-604) has 32 co-sponsors, not enough to move forward yet. It is worth noting that these bills have been proposed and backed by Democrats, Republicans, and the lone Democratic Socialist. This shows that interest is coming from all political quarters and this is a truly trans-partisan issue.
A number of the things the Federal Reserve has done in the last year and half in response to the financial crisis have stretched the legal authority of the Fed to the limit. Maybe we should be glad they took decisive, if not entirely legal actions, or maybe we should be concerned. Opinions on this subject are certainly varied. This is why so many people think we should at least know what actions were actually taken, and why.
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Today, Congressman Ron Paul suggested that the Fed might have helped to finance the purchase of military hardware by Saddam Hussein, and that the Fed might have helped to cover up the Watergate investigation. Chairman Ben Bernanke called Congressman Paul's questions "bizarre."
ReplyDeleteChairman Bernanke was trying to paint Congressman Paul as a kook, rather than engage in a substantive discussion. It is a trick the power class uses frequently. A powerful leader ridicules an idea, thereby implicitly suggesting that only morons could believe it.
Congressman Paul is no moron. He is the author of several books on U.S. monetary theory, including the recent N.Y. Times bestseller, "End the Fed."
And here's some evidence that his questions were anything but "bizarre":
First, a 1992 Los Angeles Times article demonstrating that the U.S. Department of the Agriculture and the federally owned Commodity Credit Corporation funneled money to Saddam Hussein under George H.W. Bush.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-02-25/news/mn-2628_1_foreign-policy
Second, the Senate's official Watergate report, which found that money from the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank and the Los Angeles Federal Reserve Branch were unable to account for scores of thousands of dollars that were used as hush money by President Nixon, to pay the Watergate burglars for keeping their mouths shut after their arrest.
http://books.google.com/books?id=x7nMs-JwAikC&pg=PA480&lpg=PA480&dq=watergate+federal+reserve&source=bl&ots=-ljJBc5V6D&sig=id-f9jwCnxuxnB0Sng4HE65QtaY&hl=en&ei=14CFS-j3CI3cNry_jTQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CB8Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=watergate%20federal%20reserve&f=false
When Chairman Bernanke dismisses legitimate questions as "bizarre," and the Fed continues to fight against a full and fair accounting of its activities, the American people have the right to be suspicious.