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R Paul's "Audit the Fed" has 24 Senate co-sponsors
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bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Mon May 03, 2010 5:27 am Post subject:

mises wrote:

Quote:

Obama administration officials have declined to weigh in on any specific amendments, with one exception: a move by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) to give the government more power to audit certain operations at the Federal Reserve. Fed and administration officials have signaled they would fight to stop it at all costs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575214553398009096.html

"At all costs". Think about that. What cost? All. Even the death of the whole reform bill? Yes. All costs.

Obama represents the interests of the people who had him elected.

Ya think? Oh, come on, mises. Where do you get such crazy ideas? Very Happy

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 6:52 am Post subject:

http://blog.littlesis.org/2010/05/05/mccaskills-donor-at-the-fed/

Quote:

Claire McCaskill has suggested that she will oppose the Fed audit admendment. This represents a flip-flop, as the Senator from Missouri voted for the Fed audit back in April.

One possible explanation for the shift: one of McCaskill�s top donors is Steven H Lipstein, chair of the St Louis Federal Reserve. Lipstein has given McCaskill and her committees $16,000 since she first ran for the Senate in 2006, including $11,200 for that campaign, the sort of outrageous sum that illustrates the complete meaninglessness of campaign finance limits. In February 2010, he gave her $4800, maxing out to both her primary and general accounts. His wife, Susan Lipstein, donated $2100 to McCaskill during her 2006 campaign.

Lipstein became chair of the St Louis Fed in January, 2009. Though he is also the CEO of a major nonprofit hospital system, BJC Healthcare, Lipstein suggested to the St Louis Globe-Mail in March that the financial industry is a more significant concern for him than healthcare:

Lipstein, who is also chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis board of directors, doesn�t see the health care bill as a major drain on the economy. If the state can come up with $200 million by 2017-18 it may be in line for an infusion of $2 billion in federal money, he said. �I�m more worried about the financial sector than the impact of the health care bill,� he said. (emphasis mine)

The brother of Rahm Emanuel, entertainment lawyer Ariel Emanuel, also maxed out to McCaskill�s accounts on February 28. Rahm Emanuel is reportedly leading the fight against the Fed Audit.

It�s unclear if these contributions are connected or if they played a role in swaying McCaskill. President Obama was in St Louis for a fundraiser with McCaskill two weeks later, so an invitation for that may have spurred them to donate.

Regardless, the St Louis Fed is clearly influencing McCaskill�s position on the Fed audit. Her recent criticism of the amendment echoes the words of St Louis Fed President James Bullard, who is on the Federal Open Market Committee. In an interview with the Financial Times on May 1st, Bullard called the audit �blatant political meddling in monetary policy.�

The Financial Times called Bullard�s remarks �unusually outspoken comments� from a member of the open market committee.

McCaskill also pointed to the political issues with a Fed audit:

�I�m looking at it. But I think it may have more potential to politicize the Fed than it does opportunity to really change anything that average Americans are looking for.�

All this suggests that the Fed has developed a regional strategy to target key Senators as the Fed audit comes up for vote. Will it work? Given current levels of anti-Wall Street sentiment, it looks like it could be a tough fight. But luckily for the Federal Reserve, McCaskill has taken money from the right people.

Update: I took out a reference to McCaskill donor Jeffrey T Fort, who maxed out to her accounts on the same day as Emanuel and Lipstein. Fort lives a few blocks from Lipstein, but apparently the neighborhood is quite dense with wealthy donors, so it�s hard to tell if the contributions are at all connected.

The brother of Obama's chief of staff and the head of a branch of the Fed are lobbying with money to have the Fed audit killed.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 1:08 pm Post subject:

Senate backs 1-time audit of Fed

Quote:

WASHINGTON � The Senate on Tuesday voted unanimously to require a one-time audit of the Federal Reserve�s emergency actions during and after the 2008 financial crisis as part of broad legislation overhauling the nation�s financial regulatory system.

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 2:19 pm Post subject:

Zero Hedge ran a photo about 6 months back of a document shredding cube van (yes, such a thing exists) parked outside the NY Fed. The audit will find nothing of substance. The past will remain a secret until the government archives are opened Soviet style. What is needed is transparency of the Fed going forward. Everything must be public. Oh, and an audit of the gold reserves is extremely important. Just abolish the bloody thing.

bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 6:45 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

Senate backs 1-time audit of Fed

Quote:

Perhaps a step in the right direction, but that was the weakened version. The amendment that would have given it the teeth Ron Paul originally sought was voted down, but Paul sees the 37 Senate votes it got as progress.

Ron Paul slams Audit the Fed vote

Earlier today I marked down the 96-0 Senate vote for Sen. Bernie Sanders's (D-Vt.) "Audit the Fed" amendment as a big win for one of Rep. Ron Paul's (R-Tex.) lifelong causes. But that's not quite how Paul sees it. He's criticizing the vote, expressing "disappointment" while giving Sanders some credit for the scaled-back win.

And the Campaign for Liberty, Paul's 501(c)4, is now attacking the compromise. Press releases below the fold.

From Paul:

Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) today expressed disappointment that the Senate failed to pass an amendment offered by Senator Vitter (amending the Senate financial reform bill), which included the express language of Congressman Paul�s landmark �Audit the Fed� legislation. Paul�s legislation passed by a large margin in the House of Representatives last fall as part of the House financial reform bill, and Senator Vitter�s amendment would have paved the way for a full and ongoing audit of all of the Federal Reserve�s lending and monetary policy activity.

However, the Vitter amendment was supported by over 1/3 of the Senate, and the Sanders amendment (calling for disclosure of how approximately $2 trillion of Federal Reserve credit facilities were dispersed) passed unanimously today in the Senate. Therefore Paul remains hopeful that momentum is shifting and the days of Federal Reserve secrecy are coming to an end.

�The 37 votes our measure received in the Senate represent a strong step in our continuing work for full Federal Reserve transparency. In addition, the passage of the Sanders Amendment is a victory for taxpayers, who will finally know who received $2 trillion of their money,� stated Congressman Paul. �The Fed is no longer an untouchable monolith. It can no longer take for granted its absolute power to create and give away public money at will, with no true accountability. With strong support in the Senate, the House, and especially among the public, more victories for full transparency lie ahead."

jaykimf

Joined: 24 Apr 2004

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 8:25 am Post subject:

mises wrote:

Just abolish the bloody thing.

Just abolish it. Looks like another of your knee jerk simplistic solutions. Frankly I think it's nonsense to talk about abolishing the Fed without a clear understanding of what would replace it and how the alternative would correct the problems with the Fed. What exactly are the problems that ending the Fed would solve? Nobody seems to like it that the Fed bailed out the banks and AIG, but if there hadn't been a Fed, they would have been bailed out by the U.S. Treasury. So what. What is going to replace the Fed?

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 8:38 am Post subject:

jaykimf wrote:

mises wrote:

Just abolish the bloody thing.

You do not understand the nature and causes of the ongoing crisis. You do not understand how the economy functions, for whom it functions and the mechanisms therein. You do not have any understanding of the alternatives and assume others have similar gaps in knowledge. The "but if there hadn't been a Fed" sentence is embarrassing.

I took a shot of rum to cure my hangover. All's good.

jaykimf

Joined: 24 Apr 2004

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 8:56 am Post subject:

mises wrote:

jaykimf wrote:

mises wrote:

Just abolish the bloody thing.

So you don't have any answer as to what would replace the Fed?

bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 9:06 am Post subject:

jaykimf, are you aware that there was a time when there was no Fed? Replace the Fed with what existed then - NOTHING! Let the government print its own money and not have to pay billions in interest on it. Allow the market to determine interest rates. A hundred years is enough. I'm Fed up.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 9:38 am Post subject:

Is there any country out there without a central bank? None that I'm aware of.

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 9:42 am Post subject:

jaykimf wrote:

mises wrote:

jaykimf wrote:

mises wrote:

Just abolish the bloody thing.

So you don't have any answer as to what would replace the Fed?

In this thing called history there are numerous examples of monetary regimes that have functioned better than the present regime. Technological advances open up additional possibilities.

But, what I mean to say is, it exists now so it 1) the only system possible 2) the best system possible and 3) never going to change.

You get your bread and butter from the state?

jaykimf

Joined: 24 Apr 2004

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 10:09 am Post subject:

bacasper wrote:

jaykimf, are you aware that there was a time when there was no Fed? Replace the Fed with what existed then - NOTHING!

Let the government print its own money and not have to pay billions in interest on it. Allow the market to determine interest rates.

A hundred years is enough. I'm Fed up. Evil or Very Mad

If the Fed was replaced by nothing, there would be no institution to print money. So what you apparently really mean is that the Fed would be replaced by the U.S. Treasury or some other government agency. The U.S doesn't borrow money from the Fed. It borrows it from the general public. The Fed buys government debt from the public and to the extent that it buys government debt from the public it is essentially reducing government interest costs because the Fed's profits are returned to the U.S government. When the government wishes to spend in excess of its revenue, it can either borrow it and pay interest or print money. The only way to avoid paying interest is to finance everything by printing money which would be highly inflationary. Are you in favor of massive inflation?
Monetary policy is carried out by the Fed. Since the Fed's monetary policy has the full support of the U.S government, do you believe that those policies would in any way be changed if it was carried out by the Treasury rather than the Fed? Or are you advocating a complete end to all attempts at monetary policy? Printing money is monetary policy. If the Government is not going to print money are you advocating using competing currencies issued by private institutions such as for example, Citibank? If you had been holding bank notes issued by citibank in 2006 -2007, how do you think that would have turned out without a bailout? Or are you going to require gold backing? What exactly are you advocating?

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 4:09 pm Post subject:

jaykimf wrote:

When the government wishes to spend in excess of its revenue, it can either borrow it and pay interest or print money. The only way to avoid paying interest is to finance everything by printing money which would be highly inflationary. Are you in favor of massive inflation?

Personally, I'm in favor of the government simply not spending in excess of its revenue. If its funds are deficient, it needs to either raise taxes or lower spending.

jaykimf wrote:

If the government were willing to abolish the Federal Reserve, it wouldn't be giving the Federal Reserve's monetary policy it's full support though.

bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007

Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 11:00 pm Post subject:

jaykimf wrote:

bacasper wrote:

If the Fed was replaced by nothing, there would be no institution to print money.

HISTORY LESSON: Before the Fed existed, amazingly, money was printed! How in heck did they ever do that?

Quote:

So what you apparently really mean is that the Fed would be replaced by the U.S. Treasury or some other government agency.

OK, instead of "NOTHING," I should have said "not another consortium of private bankers."

Quote:

The U.S doesn't borrow money from the Fed. It borrows it from the general public. The Fed buys government debt from the public and to the extent that it buys government debt from the public it is essentially reducing government interest costs because the Fed's profits are returned to the U.S government.

You don't think we pay interest to the Fed? Don't make me sic VQ on you!

Quote:

The Fed has caused massive inflation by its insane printing of unbacked dollars.

Quote:

Monetary policy is carried out by the Fed. Since the Fed's monetary policy has the full support of the U.S government, do you believe that those policies would in any way be changed if it was carried out by the Treasury rather than the Fed? Or are you advocating a complete end to all attempts at monetary policy? Printing money is monetary policy.

What Fox said.

Quote:

Or are you going to require gold backing? What exactly are you advocating?

Yes.

The Happy Warrior

Joined: 10 Feb 2010

Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 4:34 am Post subject:

Bacasper wrote:

A hundred years is enough. I'm Fed up.

Sorry, bacasper, we cannot give you credit for making up that catchy slogan.

Fed up (article from six months ago)

Quote:

Hardly anyone, citizen or congressman, completely understands what the Fed does, how it operates, or what the effects of its actions will be.

Here is a highly simplified outline. The Fed is a set of 12 regional banks under the command of a seven-member board of governors appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. Its 12-member Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC)�the board of governors plus five regional bank chiefs�is responsible for adjusting the federal funds interest rate, which is the rate banks charge each other for loans. The FOMC [adjusts the interest rate] through �open market operations,� buying and selling securities to affect the amount of money in the economy and thus the interest rate paid by banks to get more cash.

This process is hard enough to describe, let alone comprehend, and previous Fed chairmen have found it useful to keep their public pronouncements about the central bank�s operations maximally vague and obscure. A classic from Paul Volcker, chairman from 1979 to 1987: �We did what we did, we didn�t do what we didn�t do, and the result was what happened.� Volcker�s successor, Alan Greenspan, who enjoyed the longest stretch of low-inflation prosperity in Fed history (now widely seen as possibly laying the groundwork for the crash), helped reinforce both the central bank�s reputation for effectiveness and the expectation that its actions would remain inscrutable.

But these days the Federal Reserve faces challenges to both its power and its mystery, thanks to both hot public opinion and cold academic analysis. Politicians are demanding a peek behind the curtain, and holdovers from Paul�s 2008 presidential campaign have kick-started an �End the Fed� movement. Even within the central bank�s natural fanbase of economists and financiers, many are complaining about its appetite for regulatory power and its massive expansion of the money supply. During the last year the Fed has nearly doubled the monetary measure over which it has the most direct control, the �monetary base� (defined as circulating currency plus the reserves that commercial banks keep with Federal Reserve banks).

Basically, it seems that the Fed manipulates the stock market to set the interest rate. Do I have that right?

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