If this isn’t Ben Bernanke’s worst Congressional nightmare, I don’t know what is.
His arch-nemesis, Ron Paul, author of “End the Fed,” will take control of the House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve.
Yesterday, House Financial Services chairman-elect Spencer Bachus, chose Paul to lead the panel’s domestic monetary policy subcommittee when Republicans take the House majority next month.
Meanwhile just last week, Paul said he is planning a whole new a set of hearings on U.S. monetary policy and will restart his push for an audit of all the Fed’s functions.
In that regard, here’s a look the direction some of those hearings may take…
From Forbes by Alexandra Zendrian entitled: Ron Paul’s Golden Rule
Forbes: Why do you think the Federal Reserve needs to be audited?
Dr. Ron Paul: For lots of reasons. I don’t believe in secrecy. I don’t think anyone should have so much power that they can create money out of thin air and spend it and interfere in the markets and do central economic planning without any oversight. Congress has a responsibility to know what they’re doing because they created the Fed, they’re very, very important, and people benefit from their actions. And I’d like to know who benefits and who suffers the consequence. I just think that it would be in the interest of the people to know exactly what the Fed is doing.
Forbes: Why don’t we know what’s going on with the Fed?
People have been pretty complacent, generally complacent, over many, many years because it’s been an insidious problem. I mean, in 1913, they came into existence and a lot of people didn’t know much about it. And they didn’t call for it. But over the years, there’s always been one or two saying, “We should know more about it.”
And in the 1970s, when we had a pretty serious economic crisis with inflation and interest rates at 21%, there was a demand for an audit. So they passed an audit bill and what they did exactly was they put prohibitions in. Before that, it was a little vague, but they made it instead of opening up the doors for an audit, they made it absolutely much more difficult for us to find out what they were doing. And my bill essentially repeals what they put in place in 1978, the prohibitions against auditing the Fed.
And they work in secrecy. They’re allowed to make arrangements with foreign governments, foreign central banks, international organizations, and they’ve really abused their power, although their power’s been on the books, to deal with corporations. It’s been this recent crisis that has really brought this to a head. They have literally bought over a trillion dollars’ worth of securities. And we don’t know who benefited from that or how much they paid for them. So I think it’s time that the people know what they’ve been up to.
The Fed is all-powerful and they scare people and tell people “the world will come to an end.” That’s exactly what they’re doing right now. “This would be so horrible, we would lose our independence.” But all they’re talking about independence is secrecy. They argue, “Oh, no, we don’t want any political influence.” Well, what other kind of influence is there? Presidential politics has influence on the Fed. The president appoints the federal board chairman and other members.
There’s lots of influence behind the scenes. Companies like Goldman Sachs have influence. So there’s a lot of political influence. Deficit financing is a political influence. Congress runs up debt and that puts a lot of political pressure on the Fed.
But the transactions are secret, and that’s what I consider wrong.”
Great stuff, Congressman Paul.
By the way, it seems a though the rest of America is waking up to what Dr. Paul has been saying for some time.
Asked if the central bank should be more accountable to Congress, left independent or abolished entirely, 39 percent said it should be held more accountable and 16 percent that it should be abolished.
Only 37 percent favor the status quo.
Have a great weekend.
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