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Ron Paul Discusses The Fed's Bizarre Spending Habits
Ron Paul provides a follow up to his last week Q&A with Ben Bernanke, from the weekly column on his congressional website.
Last week I had the opportunity to bring up spending and transparency in two important hearings. On Wednesday I questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on some highly questionable uses of funds at the Federal Reserve, and on Thursday I asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about exorbitant spending at the State Department.
It is extremely important to continue bringing these issues up, especially in light of our difficult economic times, when so many are out of work, as I saw up close in my district at the Oceans of Opportunity Job Fair in Galveston two weeks ago. Those who are working live with the fear of losing their jobs as they struggle to pay bills. Meanwhile, Washington is talking of increasing their taxes, something voters were promised, clearly and adamantly, would not happen in this administration.
Government also struggles with money, but the struggle centers on how to get more of your money into government coffers. Rather than expanding the Federal budget in the face of economic downturn, we should be focusing on eliminating waste and being the very best stewards of public funds that we can possibly be. Most businesses have had to streamline and cut back in order to survive, and so it is only fair for our government to do the same.
Instead, the State Department is building a $1 billion embassy in London, the most expensive ever built. The plans even include surrounding it with a moat! I asked the Secretary of State about this massive expenditure, and she claimed the funds for this were coming from the sale of other properties. If money can be saved, then save it! Don’t spend it on such an extravagant structure overseas when people back home can’t find jobs or pay bills. Not only that, but the administration has committed to doubling foreign aid. That is one promise that is likely to be kept, despite our economic crisis.
I asked Chairman Bernanke about Federal Reserve agreements with foreign central banks and if he had had any conversations about bailing out Greece, which he flatly denied. However, he recently announced that the Federal Reserve will be looking into Goldman Sachs’ derivative agreements with Greece. Goldman Sachs, as we know, has “too big to fail” status with the Fed, so it is conceivable that any Greece-related catastrophic losses at Goldman Sachs will once again be passed on to taxpayers.
Perhaps most sinister are the revelations in Robert Auerbach’s book “Deception and Abuse at the Fed” that $5.5 billion was sent to Saddam Hussein in the 80’s - money that allowed Iraq to build up its military machine to fight Iran prior to the first Gulf War, the very machine turned against our brave men and women within just a few years! I agree with Bernanke’s characterization of this – it is indeed “bizarre” to think that Americans at the Federal Reserve could engage in this type of behavior, which a some have called “criminal”. However, Professor Auerbach served as a banking committee investigator, and as an economist at the Treasury Department and at the Federal Reserve. His claims are hardly without merit. In fact, they are solidly backed by court rulings and other evidence.
The lack of accountability and transparency in our leaders on government spending is appalling. We simply must keep pressing these issues and voicing our objections if we are ever to reverse our failed policies.
h/t Bund Vigilante
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There won't be any Greece-related catastrophic losses at Goldman Sachs. They sold their exposures to Greek banks, but kept their hedges, just for the fun of it. The only way GS will lose is if they get their free money taken away by the Fed.
Yes. My understanding was that they were "fully hedged," i.e., shorting the crap out of Greece now that they'd successfully planted the financial time bomb currency swaps.
So they actually stand to do quite well when Greece gets kicked down the well.
I was somewhat alarmed when I heard that hedge fund manager Paulson was tag teaming Greece along with Goldman Sachs and was once again in the winners circle. Last year when it was announced that Paulson made 4 billion shorting sub prime; I thought to my self he was a lone ranger who found himself in the winners circle with Goldman who made $3 billion shorting subprime.
The fact that he is in the winners circle again along with Goldman betting against Greece makes me think that maybe they were colluding together on the subprime trade and he wasn't acting alone. Why would Goldman do this? The quick answer is that they probably didn't want to show a 8-10 billion dollar profit on sub prime alone, so they teamed up with Paulson, so it wouldn't look so obvious.
Sort of like when Goldman sold Deutch bank and General Soc. bank a bunch on AIG contracts, at the very end, so that they were not holding the biggest bag of AIG counter-party contracts, making them looking suspicious.
Inspector Asset
WallStOnion.blogspot.com
Well, what if their counterparties can't pay up?
The trades will be under collateral agreements.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkp7tkeu22I&feature=related
Losses sure. We expect that. But what about GS winnings? How do I get some of that?
The failed policies are now the norm. Now with healthcare momentum, we may take an additional step down the same failed policy pathway. Eventually you reach the end of the path, where do we go from there? Hopefully down is not the only option but be sure any options will be painful. IMHO
"Perhaps most sinister are the revelations in Robert Auerbach’s book “Deception and Abuse at the Fed” that $5.5 billion was sent to Saddam Hussein in the 80’s - money that allowed Iraq to build up its military machine to fight Iran prior to the first Gulf War, the very machine turned against our brave men and women within just a few years!"
Some might call this a conspiracy theory. I call this a conspiracy fact. Might the professional "conspiracy theory" doubters be those very same conspirators and their henchmen and sadists?
I've heard arguments in the past how this is all in our nations best interest, as if propping up dictators and mad men might be in any one's best interest. I've been told that when you live in a world of guns and knives, only the naive come empty handed. Funny how so many nations' populations are extremely reluctant to maim and kill and yet the leaders are blind with blood lust. Who exactly wants the guns and knives and who wants peace and equality? Who exactly is setting men against men, brother against brother and for what benefit? Tell me again how the mothers and fathers of the dead children benefit.
Time to sit back and take inventory folks. Where do you stand, with the killers or the people who want to live and let live? Are the Muslim children less loved or valued, are they worth less than Americans or Britons or Russians? There is no neutrality in answering this question, only justification, rationalization and denial.
War is a racket, it makes money for an elite few, the rest of the population could care less. I also think it is designed to channel aggression towards an entity other than yourself, any gov't needs that.
Fundamental human needsI don't see war!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_human_needs
But you forgot "plunder". I think that would cover war, don't you?
Plunder is an act of war. It is the blurring of the deliniation of human needs, most often by the State, at gunpoint.
Yes, war is a racket. How do I know? Ask a USMC general:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_is_a_Racket
This guy was a communist sympathetiser...
Smedley Butler a communist supporter ???
You are ill informed.
This man was all about "Substance Over Symbolism".
Random Accusations Are Not Tidbits Of Wisdom. You may wish to do some research into his Congregational Medals and his testimony accusing some of the notable "Bankers" of the day of attempting to draft him to lead a coup on the American Government.
The More You Know The Less Certain You Become.
"War is a racket, it makes money for an elite few, the rest of the population could care less."
If so (and I tend to agree except I would say they try not to care less, but the knowledge eats at most people, usually deep down in the unexamined life) then we all have blood on our hands in more or less equal amounts.
Many years ago my son was involved in an incident where some friends ripped off the local store for candy, baseball cards etc. My son did not go in and did not steal. But he was involved in the planning, watched from afar and participated in eating and playing with the spoils of the theft.
When the other boys were caught and implicated my son, he was shocked when he was punished nearly as bad as the others. As far as he was concerned, he had done nothing. I soon disabused him of this notion. There are no innocents when you are aware. Knowledge means responsibility and just because you can claim you "didn't do anything" doesn't mean you are innocent.
We know what's going on in our names by our government. We reap the benefits of the foreign wars, the cheap oil, the reserve currency status of the dollar, propped up in part by our military etc. There are no innocents in America. Just 5 year old adult children trying the claim they "didn't do anything".
now you can make sense of aaron russo's comments
on the fuck you rockefellers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nD7dbkkBIA
the fed deal of the 1980s was daddy bush's doings...
daddy bush was running iran contra out of the white
house while reagan took the blame....wall street
journal published extensively on the mena drug
cartel run by barry seal in the 1980s out of mena
arkansas with bill clinton.....the presidency
was clinton's reward.....
concurrently with this crime, the bush crime
syndicate was heavily involved with saddam hussein
in instigating the evil war with iran....bush
and hussein were business partners who had a falling
out in the late 1980s - hence gulf war 1....talk
about a hoax of a war....and the asshole
politicians and murderers who denied gulf war
syndrome...
Gulf war syndrome is a major tragedy. Mostly caused by vaccines and depleted uranium. It is terrible.
"Who exactly wants the guns and knives and who wants peace and equality? Who exactly is setting men against men, brother against brother and for what benefit?"
This answer should be blatantly obvious. I will give you a hint: Peace isn't profitable.
"Tell me again how the mothers and fathers of the dead children benefit."
Please see the first response regarding profit.
Rhetorical
adjective
1. used for, belonging to, or concerned with mere style or effect.
2. marked by or tending to use bombast.
3. of, concerned with, or having the nature of rhetoric.Unfortunately there isn't massive profits in peace. I agree that it is time to reevaluate our values.
Meh...Broken Window Fallacy. There is far more equitable prosperity generated during peace-time.
War does generate vast pools of wealth concentrated in the hands for the looter class, who produce zero.
Google seems to be doing well.
Google does not represent the entire economy.
Agreed?
That settled; to rescue an entire economy from bk you need war. I'm not aware of a single exception though I suppose historians love to argue it regardless.
True but my point was to show that massive profits could be made in peacetime. You want to save the whole economy then you need a common enemy...
"Instead, the State Department is building a $1 billion embassy in London... I asked the Secretary of State about this massive expenditure, and she claimed the funds for this were coming from the sale of other properties."
Watched the questioning and Hillary Clinton said the USA LEASES their current office, so what exactly is the USA selling and at what price? Of course the USA probably does not need a $1b embassy in England to begin with. The Clintons are an interesting bunch who have Arkancided (www.arkancide.com) many people affiliated with them over the years.
As for the Federal reserve, they have been guilty of many things too numerous to list here. It is time to pass HR1207/S604 and fully audit the Federal Reserve. This will probably lead to knowing about the underhanded activities by the Rothschilds, Morgans, Warburgs, Rockefellers and others who own (via membership) the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world.
This is nothing new mind you, yet this depression provides a perfect opportunity to pass laws to make the Federal Reserve fully accountable and, if laws have been broken, to jail the offers. High treason is a serious crime and the Federal Reserve members have been guilty of this for decades.
What depression? Bonuses were up this year.
Don't be silly, there's no accountability from the makers of money, that's how it works.
The Rodhams are very powerful, don't f*^% with Hill! Arkansas was the drug hub of the 80's when Bill was sitting. I doubt Bill was clueless to these facts, and considering the Bushes were running drugs, I wouldn't doubt Bill took a cut too. Godfather Herbert Walker always said, "Bill reminds me of one of my boys."
Seriously though, nice website. I was aware of their dealings, but I guess I never put it together that so many people around them had died! Mafia dons, Bill and Hill.
"I was aware of their dealings, but I guess I never put it together that so many people around them had died! Mafia dons, Bill and Hill."
One of the primary purposes of propaganda, the constant repetition of the lie, is the distraction and distortion it creates within the mind of the sentient being. If you're exposed to the lie day after day, it becomes the "positive" in your mind, meaning the here and now, the ever present, it has immediacy and presence.
On the other side of the coin are the contrary facts, which are hidden, shunned, ignored, whispered about and publicly denied, which makes them the "negative" in your mind and thus less important, more difficult to discern and collate. Phycological warfare 101.
With accountability and transparency how is the average fraud street employee to steal!?
This will never fly.
Tyler, I gotta love ya, you da headwritin' man: Ron Paul Discusses the Fed’s Bizarre Spending Habits! +23.7 Trillion!
Their moats really sum things up. Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich "Thrid Party" '12.
bernanke's denials were classic plausible deniability.....the deal with greece was farmed out to goldman sachs to provide cover...thus paul should have asked what work had been contracted with agents to accomplish fed or treasury goals...same questions should have been put to geithner....
fuck these evil shits....
+3
What about our states. You know, California, New York. I am so fuckng tired of hearing what they are doing to the taxpayer. Get it over already, Raise my fucking taxes already.
just make out a check and send it to the californian treasury ... do the right thing ,,lol
why wait ,, be proactive
beat the crowd ,, send a check in now ,, nade out to california treasurymm
a truly wonderful jesture
beat the crowd ,, send a check in now ,, nade out to california treasurymm
a truly wonderful jesture
The London Embassy (and the Baghdad one as well) looks like a fort to me to keep the indigenous underlings away.
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin...
I gather the US will really need such embassies all around the world.
Goldman Sachs gets to pass on losses to taxpayers ... but they get to keep gains.
Failed policies, failed monetary system. Where do we go from here? Try Freedom's Vision/American Party PAC at SwarmUSA.com.
http://www.swarmusa.com/vb4/content.php
America’s church and charity services, massively more extensive than they were in the 1930s, mean the desperation of bread lines and homelessness aren’t as visible as they were in the “Depression.” But the hurt and hopelessness of this depression are there just the same. And economist William F. Shughart II shows how current government figures hide the comparison of unemployment between the thirties and today. Writes Shughart in the Spring newsletter of The Independent:
“In March of 1933, when the Great Depression had driven the U.S. economy to rock bottom, the unemployment rate stood at 25 percent: One in four Americans who had jobs in 1929 were queuing on bread lines rather than working on assembly lines… (In January, Larry Summers at Davos noted that 1 in 5 US men aged 25 to 54 are out of work.)
“To be sure,” says Shughart, “jobs financed at taxpayers’ expense were plentiful. But it is now little-known that, adopting a posture of honesty no longer affected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, people on work relief during the 1930s were not counted as employed. As a matter of fact, the individuals listed on Depression-era work relief rolls were not included in the labor force at all.
“Nowadays, the unemployment rate equals the number of unemployed persons divided by the total civilian labor force, which itself adds the number of people who are employed to the number who are unemployed. To be counted as ‘unemployed,’ though, one must not have a job but also must be engaged actively in seeking one. If you are out of work, but not searching for a new position, you are not ‘in’ the labor force and, hence, are a non-person as far as the unemployment rate is concerned.
“The employment and unemployment statistics of the 1930s took this definition a step farther by excluding people who would not be employed in the absence of public largesse. Someone who holds a job only because Congress has appropriated money for it is not creating wealth but is merely the recipient of an income transfer. Those who at the time derided the WPA as ‘We Piddle Around’ recognized the wasteful consequences of public profligacy.
“Today, however, people holding make-work positions ‘created' by stimulus spending, jobs tax credits, or ‘investments’ in alternatives to fossil fuels and other ‘green’ initiatives are counted as employed. If they were not, as they should not be, the unemployment rate would be much higher than 10 percent.”
It would appear though that prior to 1938, there were a lot of unemployed 14 and 15 year olds that were included in the unemployment rate.
That makes the following study even more frightening.
It speaks for itself: the first column represents 12/07 and the second column represents 12/09.
Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University
DE-FACTO UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
Officially Unemployed 4.9%, 10.0%
Marginally Attached .8%, 1.5%
Discouraged 02%, .05%
Underemployed 3.1%, 6.0%
Excess disability 6.0%, 6.0%
Government programs 4.0%, 4.0%
Subtotal 18.52%, 28.35%
http://anonymousmonetarist.blogspot.com/2009/12/kids-say-damnedest-things.html
Now there you go again AM, speaking truth to power. Who do you expect the great unwashed masses to believe, you or their government, who is diligently working on disbursing Federal Income Tax refund checks as we speak. No one is going to pick up arms while the Fed Govt's check is still in the mail. Refunds are even faster this year. Do I sense panic?
You might want to make sure there is no piano suspended by a thread above your head before you hit that "save" key.
Probably no worries unless of course Manchurian Mountain Mama gets in :)
Sadly you and I and others have very little to worry about because of the simplest of calculations. "They" are winning and "we" are losing, at least on the macro scale. As long as they feel we are powerless and might actually serve the purpose of displacing anger and pent up frustration, we will be left alone.
It's only when the hand of power is exercised will we know they're worried about their future. No worries at this time though, they have us all by the short hairs. The proof is self evident in the bonuses, the TBTF banks and brokers, the manipulated markets, the endless QE and so on and so on and so on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rRZdiu1UE
You're ahead of the pack, AM. Great website! You're why I love the power of the Internet. This time it IS gonna be different!
Would like to believe that this time is different but fear that... Truth be told, this time is the same. The story is that of empire. Empire stretched by foreign adventurism and debt. The decline is inevitable. As a red-blooded American cognizant of how the financial freedom afforded to me is a function of receiving the blessings of being born in a country where with guts and sweat one can create whatever life one desires, there is still optimism that great opportunities await our children. Yet we are making it so much harder on ourselves than it need be. Success teaches one little, failure displays true character. The collective failure of our Amerikantura to realize that with great power and wealth comes great responsibility has shown our solons to be weak, greedy, and venal. According to quantum mechanics somewhere in the multiverse there is a reality where the upcoming State of the Union would go like this :'Mr. & Mrs. America the greatest war we face today is a war with the future. To secure victory I hereby announce a 20% across the board cut on the federal budget and ask you to mobilize behind me to inform your representatives that unless they support this initiative you will fire them. Furthermore, we will break up any bank too big too fail, institute financial reform that is clear, unambiguous and without loophole, remove all American troops save from current theaters of war, and bulldoze K street. In other words, long Constantine and short Nero. For those that feel these measures are too tough, may I remind you that two billion folks live on less than 2 bucks a day in this world and one billion folks live on less than a buck a day... so please spare me the tales of woe. 'Tis time to cowboy up lest this great nation of ours rides into the sunset in the manner that all empires before us have done. We will make this coming century the greatest American century because we can and because we must. Make no mistake that in this war with the future we will be victorious.'
I had a dream that a progressive liberal intellectual would institute reform. Either Barry finds it within himself to be a hero, or it is generation zero.
Don't bogart that joint, my friend. Pass it over to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvGJvzwKqg0
Andrew Lahde I presume?
Damn, is it that transparent? It's the mustache, right? I told the old lady it wasn't going to work but she said to try it anyway.
Food stamps are indeed much more invisible than bread lines...
Did JPM do breadlines?
I have often wondered how the workforce counts were further skewed when we started drafting for WWII, and at the same time women started working to fill the gap in the wartime effort.
How many "Let them eat cake" moments does it take before the camel's back breaks?
Do not underestimate the degree to which the people who are suffering are capable of denying they are suffering. After all, once you finally admit that things are bad and getting worse, you gotta do something about it. By staying in denial, by remaining "hopeful", by being positive, you can avoid looking into the black abyss and put off till tomorrow the revolution that needs to start today.
[you can avoid looking into the black abyss]
So long as people are confident that there will be bread on the shelves again tomorrow ... yes.
This stupid fucking country deserves every ounce of pain it has coming to it. Burn baby, Burn!
Ron Pual shows once agins he doesn't know a thing. Iraq military spenditure was with Saudi, Emirates, Koweit, French and Japanese money.
Not that I even buy into your contention, but it should be obvious that as long as it's a budget item it doesn't matter where the actual loot came from; it hit the Treasury and then it went out again and did no earthly good for the citizens on the way through the system.
There are a lot of ways I could spend Saudi and Japanese money and not give it to black-ops mercenary contractors enriching themselves via their private war in support of oil companies operating in the Middle East. LOTS of ways. Exxon-Mobile can pay their own f*cking mercs, seeing as how they keep the f*cking profits anyway.
Somehow I doubt another financial bailout would be possible.
www.shadowstats.com has a number of interesting alternative charts for unemployment, money supply, consumer price index and others. Highly recommend as they clear the rose coloring from the glasses.
I viewed an interview on Max Keiser over the weekend. The interviwee made a good point that the dollar is based on debt, the US government MUST continue to expand debt to keep this going, there is no stopping it, until enough investors, taxpayers say enough is enough!
smedley & friends:
http://www.iamthewitness.com/
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