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Audit The Fed - And Shackle It, Too
Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
The reason to be fearful about the economic and financial future is that we are in the thrall of a mainstream consensus that is downright meretricious. In attacking Rand Paul’s audit legislation, for instance, one of the time-servers on the Fed Board of Governors, Jerome H. Powell, let loose the following gem:
“As recent U.S. history has shown, elected officials have often pushed for easier policies that serve short-term political interests…..”
Perhaps Mr. Powell is a descendent of Rip Van Winkle—–and missed the last 20 years of history while doing LBOs at the Carlyle Group and helping Congress improve upon its enviable record of fiscal management while at the Bipartisan Policy Center. But whatever he was doing—snoozing or otherwise distracted—- it most assuredly was not gathering evidence that “elected officials” were putting undue pressure on the Fed for “easier policies”.
For crying out loud there is exactly zero evidence that “politicians” had anything to do with zero interest rates. And ZIRP defines the ultimate level of “ease” according to Bernanke himself, who famously described his policies as positioned at the “zero bound”.
Indeed, given the very earliest expected date for “lift-off” in June, the Fed will have pinned the money market rate at zero for 80 months running. This unprecedented tsunami of “easy money”, of course, happened with nary a Congressman or Senator darkening the door at the Eccles Building.
Folks, this whole chorus of Fed governors—–yesterday’s lineup included Richard Fisher and Charles Plossner—-defending the sacred “independence” of the Federal Reserve is downright Kafkaesque. Rather than protecting the Fed from meddling politicians, it is the American public that desperately needs protection from the depredations of an unelected monetary politburo that runs the entire financial system.
Let’s say you have saved a quarter million bucks over a lifetime of working and scrimping, but wish to keep it safe and liquid in your retirement years. Well thank you “independent” governors of the Fed for the privilege of owning a bank CD that generates 40 bps or the grand sum $2.75 per day. That’s one visit to Starbucks each morning, but forget the cappuccino. It’s just black coffee for you!
In fact, the last time there was any significant agitation on Capitol Hill about the Fed being too tight was in the early 1990s. Back then, that same quarter million dollar nest egg would have earned about $12,000 per year, not $1,000 as it present, or a whole lot of Starbucks and other living expenses, too.
Stated differently, in their madcap pursuit of monetary “ease” our unelected financial suzerains at the Fed have implemented the most sweeping income transfer in history. By chopping upwards of 300 basis points off the historic after-tax and after-inflation return on liquid savings, the Fed annually pilfers $250 billion from the nation’s $8 trillion of depositors and savers.
Needless to say, the money extracted from the hides of savers ends up in the income statements of the US banking system. There it gets booked as retained earnings and proffered as evidence that the Fed has put bank balance sheets back into the pink of health; or with increasing frequency it is allocated to dividends and buybacks, thereby fueling the Fed’s so-called “wealth effects” levitation of the financial markets, and the net worth at the very top of the wealth and income ladder.
But however these extractions from the nation’s savers are channeled, they amount to nothing less than a giant fiscal policy maneuver; and one so repugnant to any sense of fairness and private property rights that it would otherwise have been laughed out of any standing committee on either side of the Capitol. So there is an easy money problem all right, but it originates in the Keynesian groupthink resident in the Eccles Building, not populist legislators attempting to one-up William Jennings Bryan or Wright Patman.
Come to think of it, we have actually not had a single Federal funds rate increase in 9 years. Not even once, not even 25 basis points. In fact, during the 121 meetings the Fed has held during this century it has either cut interest rates or held them constant 100 times.
But do not attribute that chronic, massive bias toward “ease” to untoward pressures from Capitol Hill. That outcome is the product of doctrine, not politics. It flows from utterly misguided and self-serving ideology of a handful of central bankers and their amen chorus on Wall Street that claims economic growth, jobs and improving living standards can be delivered by hitting the send button on the Fed’s printing press.
Back in the day, there was always a corporal’s guard of populists on Capitol Hill who pilloried the Fed for being too “tight”. Even the redoubtable Republican Senate Leader, Howard Baker, once braced Paul Volcker with a demand to “get your foot off the necks” of American business. But that was long ago, and by the end of the century not a peep emanated from Capitol Hill on the subject of tight money.
Nevertheless, it was actually after Congress went radio silent on the matter of monetary policy that the Fed’s balance sheet exploded. Indeed, during the first 86 years of its existence, the Fed’s balance sheet resembled the fabled Ohio State offense. About $5 billion and a cloud of dust—–year after year for decades running.
So by the year 2000, it had printed from thin air enough money to buy $500 billion of assets. By contrast, during the 13 weeks after the Lehman event, Bernanke printed $1.3 trillion—-and that was not owing to any Congressional mandate or gun to his head.
Indeed, it was Bernanke and his Wall Street sidekick, Hank Paulson, who went up to Capitol Hill and put a gun to their heads. It was these demagogues who scared the “politicians” witless with a phony alarm that Great Depression 2.0 was just around the corner unless the Fed opened the monetary spigots, and Congress added $700 billion of TARP on top.
In all, the Fed’s balance sheet has expanded by 9X since the time at the eve of the dotcom bust when the last disciple of Wright Patman was carried out of the House chambers. So you have to think there must be something else behind all this sudden gumming from the Eccles Building about preserving the Fed’s “independence”.
Actually, there is. What our monetary politburo is really worried about is that Rand Paul is on to something that is fundamentally threatening to their very regime. Namely, that ZIRP has crushed savers and rewarded Wall Street gamblers with free money to harvest the stupendous riches obtained from their carry trades; and that QE has been a bonanza for the fast money traders who front run the Fed but has done virtually nothing for the main street economy.
And here’s their even bigger fear. When this current massive financial bubble comes crashing down for the third time this century—-and that may happen any time soon—the torches and pitchforks are sure to come out.
At length, there will be legislation, but not merely an audit. In the fullness of time it will become evident that the problem is, in fact, undue influence and “capture”. That is, capture by Wall Street and the subordination of monetary policy to the palpable fear in the Eccles Building of a hissy fit in the casino.
And that goes to the heart of the matter. Congress not only needs to audit the Fed; it should shackle it entirely by abolishing the FOMC and eliminating its discretion to peg interest rates, expand its balance sheet and intervene proactively in the financial markets.
Stated differently, there is no need to replace the 12-member FOMC cum monetary politburo with a gaggle of 535 legislators on Capitol Hill. We have something called the free market, and that is the place where the right money market rate should be set by the interaction of users and suppliers of cash; where the yield curve should find its appropriate shape based on the interaction of savers and borrowers and the continuous flow of new information about the real world; and where honest capital markets can perform god’s work of allocating debt and equity at prices which are diligently “discovered” by at-risk investors and issuers.
At the end of the day, American capitalism does not need recycled political hacks like Jerome H. Powell or clueless school marms like Janet Yellen to thrive. If we need a Fed at all, it is the one designed by Carter Glass 100 years ago. That is, a “bankers bank” that was intended to provide standby liquidity at a penalty spread above the free market interest rate in consideration for good collateral originating from inventory and receivables in the real economy.
Under that arrangement, there would be no monetary central planning or pointless attempts to manage the level of GDP, the number of new jobs, the rate of housing starts, the fluctuations of the CPI or the amplitudes of the business cycle. There would also be no pegging of the money market rate, no helping hand for Wall Street gamblers, no cheap debt to enable profligate politicians to kick-the-can down the road indefinitely.
In short, what the nation really needs is not an “independent” Fed, but one that is shackled to a narrow and market-driven liquidity function. The rest of its current remit is nothing more than the self-serving aggrandizement of the apparatchiks who run it; and who have now managed to turn the nation’s vital money and capital markets into dangerous, unstable casinos, and the nations savers into indentured servants of a bloated and wasteful banking system.
Yes, the monetary politburo has every reason to fear Rand Paul’s demand for a “policy audit” of the Fed. An honest one would show that its so-called “independence” has been monumentally abused in a manner which is deeply threatening to both political democracy and capitalist prosperity.
Needless to say, we can’t have that audit soon enough.
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As if an audit would do anything anyway. It needs to be abolished, just like every other government agency.
An audit would reveal unbelievable amounts of corruption and fraud, which would lead to the FED's abolishment.
Just like corruption at the CIA ended the CIA, and corruption at the IRS led to the abolishment of the IRS, and corruption at the NSA ended the NSA....
Oh wait, that kind of thing doesn't happen in the real world...
What are you peaople thinking? Don't you have any brains in your damned heads?
Any audit will be a sham.
IMHO, anyone that thinks these criminals are actually going to provide an honest and full assessment of The Fed's activities is a damned fool. Yeah: I'm talking about Ron and Rand, too.
Fuck them both and their obsfucation bullshit.
Rumsfeld even told everyone publicly that the Pentagon couldn't acoount for a few trillion dollars.
-Not the balck ops. budget money, mind you; just what was appropriated through the proper lawful congressional channels...
No one is going to learn anything with any supposed 'audit' of The FED and no one would do fuck all even if The FED 'fessed up' -as the Pentagon did- to not being able to account for trillions of dollars in credit, bonds, gse debts, corporates, gold, derivatives exposures, or anything else....
I love me some David Stockman speaking truth to power and all that. I just love it.
But I sometimes think, doesn't David see the whole progression from the US Fed dominated system to the BIS/IMF dominated system where there will be no accountability of finance and whole nations are asset stripped and resource harvested? Is he that blind? I don't think so. Maybe he discounts it. Maybe he ignores it. Maybe he deliberately downplays it. Audit the Fed! Super Glass Steagall! Hoozah! Hoozah!
In the meantime I really enjoy his rants. I just take them with a tablespoon of salt.
No need for an audit. Just end it outright and make all US Fed Res notes invalid for payment. That would end the Zionist's control the fastest.
Not that it would ever happen, because there are too many "Christians" suffering from religious capture, because they missed that part about false Jews in Revelations. The Jewish Mafia appparently understands how to tell a convincing tale.
it honestly won't end until there are hungry people in the streets with pitchforks and torches.
.mil will be on our side then, God willing.
I ask the same question of the "BRICS are coming to save us all" nutjobs on ZH and across the alternative media, as these same countries' financial leaders are rapidly intergrating within the IMF/BIS and drafting papers about a "faux-gold backed" SDR, but no one seems to care about that, either.
Almost as if this whole charade of "Audit the Fed, Destroy the Fed" is simply a prerequisite for an international system to swoop in and play Globalist Superman... not that the Fed (and all government agencies) shouldn't go by the wayside, of course, but this grand "awakening" the Western world has been undergoing may very well serve a purpose to the Elite scumfucks, as most social movements (the hippies of the 60s, the Reds of the 20s) typically do.
Yes, there is an unknown risk ahead, but it just might be a d@mn-sight better than the status quo!
...unless it's a part of the status quo. Then we're fucked.
Only if the audit were legit. These people have learned how to manipulate 2+2. As much as I'd like to see it happen, Rand is threatening a global power that perhaps he isnt even aware how big. they're never just going to come clean without fighting back.
its the cynic in me that believes even an audit could be "Grubered"
pitch forks and torches > audit :)
An audit would be in some peoples best interest, the dollar bubble would get punctured. This would help trade but destroy the banks.
Maybe it wouldn't do much, but let's start somewhere. I agree with the article regarding what the fed's role should be in the market. I also think Bernanke deserves some time in a federal prison with bubba and get skull fuked every night. We shouldn't say a policy is worthless just because it doesn't solve the problem entirely. So let's not write it off. One step at a time until we get their. Rand Paul please proceed.
Mr. Greenspan freely admits that "the central bank [has been given] unlimited power to create money..." This is tantamount to admitting that, in the United States, the Federal Reserve banks are unconstitutional. That country happens to have a constitution stating in no uncertain terms that it is the charter of a government of limited and enumerated powers. Not only is the (delegation of) power to create unlimited amounts of money not enumerated, but the Constitution explicitly bars the government from letting its bills of credit be organized into currency.
-- Dr. Antal E. Fekete, Ph.D. regarding
Lawrence Park's "What Does Mr. Greenspan Really Think?"
(ISBN 0-97-10380-4-X)
Also available here: http://www.fame.org/PDF/MG_ISBN097103804X.pdf
I read the Constitution as a limit on the states ability to print scrip for money. It doesn't prohibit the US government from creating a fiat currency system. It just prevents the states from doing so. Just my humble opinion.
A different take on Mr. Greenspan, courtesy of Lawrence Parks:
Mr. Greenspan is the most brilliant of anyone who has ever served at the Federal Reserve. I have found some of his speeches, especially those given out of the country, to be extraordinarily candid about the perils such as possible systemic collapse of our irredeemable-paper-ticket-checkbook (fiat) money system and, alternatively, the benefits of the gold standard.
Mr. Greenspan is careful with his language. Sometimes he makes straightforward assertions that he believes to be true. Interspersed with these are statements that he qualifies with words such as "presumably", "possibly as a consequence", and so on. In these cases, I believe he is signaling that he does not share this position. Otherwise, he would leave out the qualifier.
The position he [held] as Federal Reserve Chairman constrain[ed] his language. At the end of his speech*, he [said] that he has to operate within the “context of his political environment” I take this to mean that he does not see himself as someone who can boldly oppose or overtly criticize the current system. However, he is doing us a huge service by repeatedly emphasizing the disaster that awaits us with our present fiat monetary system and the benefits that we would enjoy with gold-as-money.
* At the Catholic University Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. January 14, 1997
Source: http://www.fame.org/PDF/MG_ISBN097103804X.pdf
We should trust the auditors?
Would the Fed report any employees who have misused the Fed for personal gain or through bribery? Oh course not, because that would take the credibility away from the Fed.
Do we trust local bankers and not audit local banks?
Without audits and supervision the moral hazard increases in proportion to immunity from audits.
If you were to read the fed manifesto, you would fucking surely go blind.
Or the bullshit spew would make your head explode.
Banksters privy to this knowledge are asked to seek medical attention if their erection lasts over four hours.
For the rest of us, we need to use Depends Elite. Protection against anal leakage.
I ain't holding me breath. This bastard will have to blow before central banking is addressed and even then, MOAR central banking will be the suggested remedy. Sigh...
True, dat.
They can clamor for more central banking over the sound of the guillotines. If this next downturn is as bad as I think it's going to be, that might not be very far from the truth. If it's not that bad, expect the next one to be that bad. It all depends on what tricks of paper pushing and theft they can pull this time around. I think that the only tricks that they have left are 1) printing, 2) theft of retirement accounts and 3) more printing. They might do some NIRPing, but that's just fucking retarded. War might be a trick, but the squeeze on the former middle class could be great enough to give them a war that they do not want.
Squid sushi, anyone?
Fuck that. End the fucker.
But that won't happen. Bread and Circuses must continue, or there will be riots.
The FED mandate can only be ended by Congress, and the FED Banksters own Congress.
Thanks for saying the evident that most at ZH don't WANT to understand when they rant against EW and for RP.
The Fed is a maze guarded by the Minotaur; so auditing it is just a way of losing yourself.
Do we remember what happened when people wanted to audit the JFK assassination verdict and the Warren Commission report? I remember a guy in New Orleans who tried to do that! JG !
The fed owns congress, hmmm. A part of me is glad that I don't own a crew of such useless fucks.
Don't delude yourself... they represent what man wants most in life : POWER !
And, you got that wrong in your deluded rant : Its the Congress that is owned by the TBTF who also own the FED !
The TBTF own the FED and the Congress. But the COngress passes the law that makes the TBTF immune to being audited, as well as the surrogate FED.
Suddenly we have numerous Central Banks globally doing the biting while the Fed merely barks and the BOJ indicates backing away from Abenomics. If I wasn't such a big dummy I might think there has been a change in the power structure.
I'd like to see Ft Knox get an audit too. But neither will EVER be audited. Not no way, not no how.
Unbelievable in how in the land of the "free" and entrepreneurial spirit and markets, manipulation of the most basic cornerstone of capitalism, fair capital markets has been abandoned and is now worse then its old enemies the communists.
We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people.
-- Daniel Webster
farmboy - I have been using the moniker of "Neo Bolsheviks" to describe those people for about 2 years now on ZH. Putin and the Russians recognize them as the heirs to the people that destroyed Russia in 1917. That's why the Russians want nothing to do with them. That is alo wht you see such anti putin / Russia vitriol in the Lame Stream Media and the Economist today
In short, what the nation really needs is not an “independent” Fed, but one that is shackled to a narrow and market-driven liquidity function.
Still too much wiggle room for bullshit. Scrap the fed and just mint gold and silver coins.
Do you honestly think Americans will walk around with gold and silver coins in their pockets for currency?
once they understand the 'secrets' of debt-money they will
might take a spoonful of sugar...
http://www.amazon.com/Paslode-501000-PowerMaster-Pneumatic-Framing/dp/B0...
these are good units, i actually own one, and when people realize that honest money will allow you to utilize such a cool tool to build a nice deck, they will readily use gold and silver coinage to trade... we use barter in the country all day long, .999 fine coins from one of several reputable mints would be icing on the cake at this point.. no bank required
Yes.
"Audit The Fed - And Shackle It, Too"
As Jim Grant noted some time ago, violation of the coinage act of 1792 is a capitol offense.
Therefore, justice will not be served until the fuckers are hanging from ropes.
The FED will need to lose a lot of emails if this Audit goes through...
will need to lose alotta company stock, s&p futures, junk bonds .............
The books will show they are on the path of owning and controlling everything. Control by chaos is their mission statement and motto.
It's in crunch mode. Has been for a while. But the more crunch comes will be redirected, as it has been, on we the people. Need any more proof?
I made a vow, to not let self centered assholes keep any sunshine from going up my ass.
whats the big secret???????
The master chattles think the prole chattles are too stoopid to know how to leave the farm. The answer is easy, get silver, gold, guns and start making lipstick lists.
Yes, I'm convinced that without an independent audit AND restructuring of both the FED and the Pentagon there will be no changes... of course it will never happen unless the USSA people revolt... but it looks like they don't really care as long as they can buy a new iPhone...
Restructuring? I think you mean abolishment. The pentagon too. We need to go back to a model of defense, not offense, where we aren't the boogie man that you need to look to the skies in fear of drones, but where we would be damned near impossible to invade.
Well, yes, but I'm realistic - abolishment will hardly happen without a revolution... so restructuring is possibly the only viable option. But even restructuring is unlikely as things stand. My point is that true change to this parasitic disastrous model can only come from WITHIN the US, but for that to happen the people need to be much better informed about what is actually going on and the standard of living of a critical mass needs to drop significantly - unless this happens I don't see any changes any time soon. Probably it will happen once the middle class is eliminated so there will indeed be no buffer between the 1% and the poor...
Think this through. Of course the FED needs to be burned to the ground, but you have to first expose it, then you can burn it to the ground. Get behind this, the Republicans actually want to have it happen.
The Fed's already Shekel'ed.
A honest audit is never going to happen. Expecting government to expose its partner in crime is delusional. We need to end the Fed, but not by playing the game of politics. Rather, we must take things into our own hands and implement strategic non-compliance. DISOBEY. http://endthefed.org/
haha. he said cum.
Now you are talking!
Its not an audit that you want, like done by a Price Waterhouse and consorts, paid minions-- like S&P or Moody for the bond markets -- of the TBTF class and their subsidiary shells like the FED.
SHACKLE the FED, NATIONALISE IT and strip it transparent to understand its true motivation and who pulls the strings and who benefits from it. Its all there but an audit will show nothing except a maze of Knossos where you run around in circles as no Arianne is there with her thread. Just the Minotaur of executive privilege.
The FED is the executionary arm, ostensibly in the NAME of the STATE, that blatantly enriches; to the point of making desititute the nation; the Oligarchy class that owns it.
And you want to AUDIT a corruption of this calibre?
Hahaha, as if its actions since 2008 need to be understood by an AUDIT.
There as as clear as the sun that rises and shines on the world. What is there to understand about QE/ZIRP/Swaps with ECB/ and leaving the OTC market to do carry trades into the shadow banking recesses ?
And just as poisonous to the common man as the sun's rays are to the naked eye of beholder.
We need the good old days of Volcker back. Unfortunately in our current age of manginas, noone has the spike or balls for the task.
Since we are all into audting the FED which might be game changing maybe since we have the bean counters engaged we could possibly move them right over to Ft. Knox and the NY Vault and check out the gold situation. That might jump start the revolution.
Since we are all into audting the FED which might be game changing maybe since we have the bean counters engaged we could possibly move them right over to Ft. Knox and the NY Vault and check out the gold situation. That might jump start the revolution.
The FED building monopolies for 100 years in this country. They are independant, they run this shitshow.
They think they are gods.
As far as the elected goes? Well thats like being asked what you want for dinner when your already in line at MikyDs.
It is true that politicians will likely meddle with the fed given the opportunity as they have been trying to do as they first threatened to intervene and now sit silently watch the fed destroy what is left of capitalism in the us in favor of cronyism and monopoly.
Clearly there needs to be bounds on the feds power and to enforce those bounds there would need to be monitoring. We should be discussing the bounds before the monitoring. Otherwise its just idle meddling.
END THE FED.
In bizarro world, Stockman knows this is not realistic without utter collapse.
ZIRP and QE have everything to do with backstopping banks and raping citizens.
This is the purpose, reason, and essence of the "Federal" Reserve.
END THE FED.
I believe that it's chapter 26 of "The Creature From Jekyll Island, 3rd Ed" that prescribes what must be done with the Fed.
Boom shakka boom .... Boom shakka boom ! Shackle it ! Boom shakka boom !
Bankers have demonstrated why un-regulated free markets are a utopian fantasy.
We de-regulated banks and trusted bankers and they rigged every market they could.
We removed the 1930s legislation designed to prevent another 1929 and they did it again in 2008.
We can thank the bankers for reminding us of the necessity of legislation and why it was enacted in the first place.
There is lots of financial regulation because bankers are incompetent, unscrupulous and entirely without morals.
Jews, there I said it.
Look up, one level higher
Governments have no business determining what is or is not money
Governments have no business granting banks the power to create money out of thin air, via fractional reserve lending
That governments then turn around and try to "fix" the problem they just created is getting old
Government is always the problem, ALWAYS
I don't mean to be partisan but The Democats are guilty of turning a blind eye. They saw what Bernanke did when he went to 85 billion a month QE and they didn't say sht because they wanted the economy to look good on their watch. If it were a Republican president I would be saying the same thing. You have a party wanting to look good and they will get into bed with anyone who can facilitate that for them. You need an audit group or oversight to assure that the blind eye doesn't get turned by a party, when someone like Bernanke does something stupid. They way the fed operates now is almost like giving shareholders the option of saying something if the company they have money invested in commits fraud, they aren't going to say anything because it is not in their best interest.
You have to speak their language in all it's Pan-African tones !
well written
The FED needs to be DEAD!....
Okay, Krugman says not to worry about debt as we owe it to ourselves! There all fixed!
Don't worry-bout the FED. Just get out there and spend, spend, spend!!!!
I'd be happy if we kept NET NEUTRALITY. See John Oliver's key clip below.
"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver": Net Neutrality (HBO)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU
Presidential contender RAND PAUL said the plan “gives the FCC the power to decide what Internet service providers can charge and how they operate. This is not only a direct attack on the free market, but it will also result in an increase in Internet access fees for millions of consumers in America. It’s a massive tax on the middle class, plain and simple.”
One of David's better pieces.
ABSOLUTELY NO NO NO NO NO !!!!!
**** ABOLISH THE FED NOW ****
AMEN DAVID! The root cause is the UNCHECKED fractional reserve banking phantom claims on real flows of valued that concentrate "Wealth" and control in the TBTJ banking sector over time as it front runs boom/bust cycles that it engineers via its knowledge of positions (MM) and control of the effective money supply... It has starved the real economy (collecting IOER from the Fed) while abusing flow and knowledge of positions to run the option/scalping pain trade and turn everyone upside down. Unless and until we end the abuse of TBTJ, the economy cannot recover and society cannot become stable -- the INHERENT disconnect between value creation and value capture from DISHONEST/FRAUDULENT FRB claims will always undermine it....
I like his thinking and I like his writing.
And this is from a guy who thought he was a putz when he was Laffer's napkin reader for Reagan.
0%
What is the chance of TPTB allowing the fed to get audited, Alex?
Also, I think there would be guillotines rolled out if we actually opened the books of the fed...
There has to be mountains of toxic shit buried in there.
Guillotine the Fed!
The banksters need to repay us.
Audit the heads.
'Shackle-ing' has never worked. Thomas Jefferson called for it as have others. Any agreement can and is broken when that is what is required.
Try again. Any solution that has 'shackling' as a component is only a short term solution.
All this "audit the Fed" talk is just the politicians firing a warning shot over Yellen's head...Things are looking quite ominous, and it's Washington's way of saying "You guys SAID you knew what you were doing...you better not fuck this up..."
Sorry, but Mathematics states that a MAJOR fsckup is coming!
It in no way surprises me that the Fed's governors wish to avoid an audit of the Fed. Not even a little. What does surprise me, just a little, is how easily these guys cow our Congress. After all, we aren't asking the Fed to voluntarily lay back and spread its legs (aka open its books), we are asking our elected representatives to demand they do so. Hence, the Fed is behaving exactly as one would expect - it is the U.S. Congress that has become the Cowardly Lion. Man-up boyz - with all this shit, I'm damned sure there's a pony in there somewhere.
It's obvious that an audit of the fed would bring down the whole house of cards. I would dearly love to see the crooks exposed but part of me wouldn't mind if I can continue my humble existence albeit based on a huge lie, The alternative of having to get the pitchforks out and deal with huge piles of bankers is nothing I'm looking forward too. "I plead not so ignorant bliss your honor".
It'll never happen, though, even if it does, what difference will it make?
THE DAMAGE IS DONE!
Not a fan of Rand, but he's on to something here. Why not audit? who annoited them? I can remember when the gov. was stealing our freedom they said " why do you protest, if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't mind us searching your home " So, if the Fed is on the up and up they shouldn't mind. Infact they ought to insist on it, too show that the faith in them to TCB is well placed and deserved. Ha, that'll be the day. How about "Audit the Fed" be put on the ballot, every ballot, everywhere, councilmen? audit the fed. Dog cather, Audit the fed, etc.etc. The Feds business is accounting (kinda) so let them be accountable. For a guy who"s ass sits on his neck, he has a good idea, not original I'm sure, but a sound course of action all the same.
Not a fan of Rand, but he's on to something here. Why not audit? who annoited them? I can remember when the gov. was stealing our freedom they said " why do you protest, if you have nothing to hide you shouldn't mind us searching your home " So, if the Fed is on the up and up they shouldn't mind. Infact they ought to insist on it, too show that the faith in them to TCB is well placed and deserved. Ha, that'll be the day. How about "Audit the Fed" be put on the ballot, every ballot, everywhere, councilmen? audit the fed. Dog cather, Audit the fed, etc.etc. The Feds business is accounting (kinda) so let them be accountable. For a guy who"s ass sits on his neck, he has a good idea, not original I'm sure, but a sound course of action all the same.