Weekly Open Thread

It is little known, however, that there is a federal agency that tops the others in secrecy by a country mile. The Federal Reserve System is accountable to no one; it has no budget; it is subject to no audit; and no Congressional committee knows of, or can truly supervise, its operations. The Federal Reserve, virtually in total control of the nation’s vital monetary system, is accountable to nobody—and this strange situation, if acknowledged at all, is invariably trumpeted as a virtue. …

I’ve been wanting to write a reader post on the Federal Reserve but haven’t been able to find much free time lately. Thanks to Mish Shedlock, and this gem of a post, much of what I would write about is all here; a great read. Here’s a few excerpts, but anyone with even the slightest interest will want to read the entire post. It also contains a link to Rothbard’s ‘Case Against the Fed’. For the record, I’m no Ron Paul fan, but I do agree he’s got it right when it comes to the FR.

Excerpts of Mish’s response to Bernake:

Bernanke: The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis. We have extensively reviewed our performance and moved aggressively to fix the problems.

Mish: Ben you acted the way all regulators act: Doing nothing while Rome burns, then attempting to prevent Rome from burning after it has already burnt to the ground.

Ben, in case you did not notice, the market already shut down subprime mortgages, pay option ARMS, HELOCs, and excessive credit card debt. Your feeble cries are too little, too late. At best your efforts would prevent the last problem, but not the next one. The market has already prevented the last problem privately, even as Fannie and Freddie are once again taking on excessive risk as government entities.

The first thing any regulator in his right mind would do would be to shut down Fannie and Freddie, yet you and the Fed feed the beast, bloating your balance sheet with garbage in the process.

[…]

Bernanke: We have come a long way in our battle against the financial and economic crisis, but there is a long way to go. Now more than ever, America needs a strong, nonpolitical and independent central bank with the tools to promote financial stability and to help steer our economy to recovery without inflation.

Mish: Indeed, we have come a long way thanks to Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill. There still is a long way to go. It is time to put in a plan to phase out fractional reserve lending and phase in a dollar backed by something rather than nothing before the Fed can do any more damage to the economy.

My Plea For Everyone

I ask everyone to read Murry N. Rothbard, The Case Against The Fed.

It is a short 151 pages, and easily understandable by all. Here is an online PDF of The Case Against The Fed and it is free courtesy of Mises.

[…]

Stop the Power Grab

It is imperative to stop the Fed’s power grab. The Fed bailed out banks and the bondholders of banks, illegally, at taxpayer expense. Moreover, the Fed would do it again in a flash. While the bondholders were made whole (the same applies to Fannie and Freddie), taxpayers are footing the bill.

Moreover the Fed has expanded its balance sheet by $trillions and no one really knows exactly what is in it, how much it is worth, or how much taxpayers might be on the hook for it.

While making claims of transparency, the Fed has fought to kill mark to market accounting at banks and the Fed certainly does not mark its own books to market. The whole thing is a huge shell game. The FDIC and the entire banking system is insolvent.

Poor Caretta Caretta, just saw Biden in his underwear!

Separated at birth:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/11/obama-lee-myungbak-korea-black-belt.html

Tiger did what?

Turtle Offers Freebies for Climate Conference Delegates!

Turtle says… “Obama wants to do WHAT????”