As Jason Pye notes, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke seems to be pretty concerned about the Audit The Fed bill:
Bernanke’s fear-mongering is entirely incorrect, of course. All that the bill would do is open up the Fed’s decision making process to public scrutiny in a way it never has before. It does not take away any of the Fed’s independence, it does not give Congress any authority to dictate monetary policy.
And, yet, Bernanke is saying that it does and telling us what a bad thing that would be.
Why does he object to a little transparency ?
H/T: United Liberty
July 29th, 2009 at 12:53 am
The article: Ben \”Systemic Risk\” Bernanke proves that Bernanke knowingly maintained a strict monetary policy long after he knew of the sub prime problem as he knew it would cause of the \”Depression\”.
It shows that he probably engineered it on purpose!
If you want to sleep tonight, Don\’t Read It!
\”In contradiction to the prevalent view of the time, that money and monetary policy played at most a purely passive role in the Depression, Friedman and Schwartz argued that \”the [economic] contraction is in fact a tragic testimonial to the importance of monetary forces\” (Friedman and Schwartz, 1963, p. 300).
…..
The slowdown in economic activity, together with high interest rates, was in all likelihood the most important source of the stock market crash that followed in October.
In other words, the market crash, rather than being the cause of the Depression, as popular legend has it, was in fact largely the result of an economic slowdown and the inappropriate monetary policies that preceded it.
Of course, the stock market crash only worsened the economic situation, hurting consumer and business confidence and contributing to a still deeper downturn in 1930.\”
Governor Ben S. Bernanke
Money, Gold, and the Great Depression.
At the H. Parker Willis Lecture in Economic Policy, Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, Virginia.
March 2nd, 2004
You can read also: Preparing for the Crash, The Age of Turbulence Update: 27/07/09., which tries to accomplish Greenspan Mission Impossible:
\”That is mission impossible. Indeed, the international financial community has made numerous efforts in recent years to establish such oversight, but none prevented or ameliorated the crisis that began last summer.
Much as we might wish otherwise, policy makers cannot reliably anticipate financial or economic shocks or the consequences of economic imbalances.
Financial crises are characterised by discontinuous breaks in market pricing the timing of which by definition must be unanticipated – if people see them coming, then the markets arbitrage them away.
…
The clear evidence of underpricing of risk did not prod private sector risk management to tighten the reins.
In retrospect, it appears that the most market-savvy managers, although conscious that they were taking extraordinary risks, succumbed to the concern that unless they continued to \”get up and dance\”, as ex-Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince memorably put it, they would irretrievably lose market share.
Instead, they gambled that they could keep adding to their risky positions and still sell them out before the deluge. Most were wrong.\”
Alan Greenspan
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World [Economic Order?].
The Age of Turbulence: Plea for a New World Economic Order. explains the nature and causes of economic depressions and proposes a plausible alternative solution.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:40 am
If there’s nothing to hide, then show the books. Since Ben doesn’t read, accept or recognize the Constitution of the United States, he doesn’t understand or accept that it says “Only Congress shall issue and coin money and set it’s value”. It does NOT state that Congress can delegate that authority. It’s about time the people took back the power to issue their own money without paying interest to the bankers, who should never have had the illegal unconstitutional authority to hijack our debt free money.
We have been scammed, robbed, and manipulated for almost 100 years, time to take back what they stole.