Also before 2010, when Democrats led by Harry Reid passed a FinReg bill that, amongst other things, audited the Fed...
Do you believe in universal transparency? Supreme Court deliberations should be public? CIA national security discussions should be viewable by the public? All Presidential communications should be available on the web? Or do you believe, in some instances, privacy and doing things behind the scenes has value?
You disagree? Minor minutes of Fed meetings move the markets and can create or destroy billions in wealth. The Fed's actions in 2007/2008 were part of what prevented the complete collapse of the western financial system. Anything that impacts their ability to do their job is a huge systemic risk to the country. So yes, in that respect, the Fed and CIA have similarities. But I see you ducked the question. I guess that was your way of admitting that secrecy does have immense value and transparency isn't the ultimate goal, but avoiding trying to explain why it shouldn't be the case here?
I disagree. A lack of transparency in the fed was a primary reason our economy is in the shape it is now. You can argue that more transparency theoretically causes problems of his own, but why would you defend a system that is clearly broken, because the alternate COULD go wrong? Your basically defending the privacy, of the same people who abused it to change policy, line their pockets, and usher in the economic collapse. The SEC is incapable of or unwilling to enforce securities regulation, so there is no choice but to monitor it publicly. We already know the people in charge will abuse the privacy, because they have, and there is nothing to stop them from exacerbating it. There was, and currently still is, no accountability. I'll take my chances with finding things we don't want to find, if it means we can potentially get scumbags like Ben Bernanke out of office. The current privacy only offers protection for those as fortunate as him.
Now you are arguing that the Fed's actions were good in 2007/08. That is a discussion for another thread maybe I have with you later... Because what the Fed does impacts every single American. They are the most powerful player in the US economy - more powerful than Congress - and yet much of what they do is in secret. The American people deserve to know everything they are up to...
I disagree completely with that. The reason the economy is in a mess is because politicians caved to bankers and allowed them the ability to all sorts of things they shouldn't be doing. The last thing I want is the Fed getting subject to being influenced by those same politicians. The Fed, and their ability to make non-political decisions, is the only reason the country's economic system is still functioning. The SEC and Fed do totally different and generally unrelated things. I'm not sure the connection here.
And what the CIA does impacts every single American. They are a powerful player in international affairs and can instigate wars or assassinate foreign leaders if they want to. More powerful than Congress, and yet much of what they do is in secret. Very similar institutions, except involved in different areas of national security.
Exactly. Politicians like Greenspan spearheaded deregulation, and increased leverage limits for bankers to abuse. Why? Because he was in the bankers pocket. The current chairman of the FED just maintained the status quo. Bernake continued to ignore the oncoming crisis, because he was convinced to look the other way. Even after the crisis, he's been accused of forcing Bank of Americas hand in the Merrill Lynch AFTER finding out that Lynch's losses were severely understated at the time. From there, he starts to throw his weight behind bailouts. Esentially trying to stave off a full collapse by paying debts with another check. It would be nice if full transparency wasn't needed. It would be better to keep some things behind closed doors IF we could trust the people behind them. Only we know for a fact that they cannot be trusted to make the country's best interest paramount. You're right, that paragraph wasn't clear. I meant to point out the fact that banks have sunk their teeth into both. The SEC allows the banks to do what they want on wallstreet, and the FED is another personal support system/saftey net. Something has to change, and if this is the only way to usher that change in, so be it. It's probably too late to fix it as is.
I posted it here in this thread, perhaps you missed it---http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htm I mean, I don't know, either the Fed is doing a really s**tty job of being this opaque secret society, or the people who are audit-hunting have no idea what they are talking about?
If the Fed spills the beans on who gets the discount window money, just for example, those banks are dead within minutes. Which defeats the whole purpose of the discount window. Hell, markets can swing on a dime given public statements by Fed officials that have very little to do with actual FOMC meetings. (I won't name names, but those inclined to profit and who like research might note that speeches by a certain FOMC member are very strongly correlated with subsequently widely high upwards movement on major financial indices.)
Are you saying the FED is committed to being honest because they said so in a PR related press release? Please...
No, I'm saying it because they release minutes of every meeting...literally. Which if you clicked the link, you would have realized. An excerpt from the most recent one--- http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomcminutes20120620.htm
I do believe the CIA needs Congressional oversight - if that is what you are asking. I just don't want our enemies to find out the inner workings of our CIA. But no, the Fed has little to do with national security - it is a financial institution. To compare the two is silly - you should know better than that... Is that not a case of blaming the messenger for the bad news?
It's why we can even make graphs like the following--- http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/F/10/scale.swf I mean, decisions by the FOMC are so public that smart financial players can even anticipate how individual policy-makers will make their decisions, and how they will vote. For example, everyone knows Lacker will fight monetary accommodation to the death. In any case, like I said, either the Fed is doing a really s**t job of being a secret society, or people who want an "audit" don't know how to use Google.
Statements don't have question marks, questions have question marks. All that article states is it wants to audit what has not been audited with no reason given. It then claims that it will give answers to the American people. Answers to which questions? Could you explain the importance of those 4 items? All I forsee out of this, much like the Jamie Diamon meeting, are politicians getting their facetime on TV for re-election. The Chinese have a direct connection to the Treasury and M3 money data has not been published in over 6 years. Will auditing the Federal Reserve answer question I have in regards to the Chinese direct Treasury connection or M3 money data? I highly doubt it; faux populism at its best.
