Federal Reserve Transparency Act - HR1207 - Ron Paul

[slipslidingaway]

Run time: 06:05 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PC9fkLMZmo   Posted on YouTube: March 16, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: May 01, 2009 By DU Member: slipslidingaway Views on DU: 1599

 
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1207

"show cosponsors (112)


"To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes."


http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/tx14_paul/AudittheFedBill.shtml

"February 26, 2009

Madame Speaker,

I rise to introduce the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. Throughout its nearly 100-year history, the Federal Reserve has presided over the near-complete destruction of the United States dollar. Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy. How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? Only big-spending politicians and politically favored bankers benefit from inflation.

Serious discussion of proposals to oversee the Federal Reserve is long overdue. I have been a longtime proponent of more effective oversight and auditing of the Fed, but I was far from the first Congressman to advocate these types of proposals. Esteemed former members of the Banking Committee such as Chairmen Wright Patman and Henry B. Gonzales were outspoken critics of the Fed and its lack of transparency.

Since its inception, the Federal Reserve has always operated in the shadows, without sufficient scrutiny or oversight of its operations. While the conventional excuse is that this is intended to reduce the Fed's susceptibility to political pressures, the reality is that the Fed acts as a foil for the government. Whenever you question the Fed about the strength of the dollar, they will refer you to the Treasury, and vice versa. The Federal Reserve has, on the one hand, many of the privileges of government agencies, while retaining benefits of private organizations, such as being insulated from Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Federal Reserve can enter into agreements with foreign central banks and foreign governments, and the GAO is prohibited from auditing or even seeing these agreements..."

[wtbymark]

1. This is much needed

if the Fed stays the way it is, it should be abolished

[slipslidingaway]

2. Yes and thanks for the knr n/t

[slipslidingaway]

3. kick for transparency n/t

[wildbilln864]

4. and another kick and rec for transparency in...

the non federal Federal Reserve! :hi:

[slipslidingaway]

5. Thank you, I think it is a bill we should support....

:hi:

[slipslidingaway]

6. What 'Oversight' Means in Washington - Glen Greenwald

Up to 134 cosponsors on HR 1207.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5611856&mesg_id=5611856

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/07/oversight/index.html

"Since last September, the Federal Reserve has increased its balance sheet by more than $1 trillion, and has engaged in even much larger amounts of off-balance-sheet transactions. In January of this year, freshman Rep. Alan Grayson repeatedly asked Federal Reserve Vice chairman Donald Kohn the identity of the companies which had received those loans, only to be told that the Fed had no obligation and no desire to disclose that information to Congress. That obviously leads to the question of who exerts oversight over the Fed and the vast amounts of money it transfers.

One answer -- the only real answer -- is that the Fed's activities are monitored by an Inspector General, which ostensibly "conducts independent and objective audits, inspections, evaluations, investigations, and other reviews related to programs and operations of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Board)" which "promote integrity, economy, efficiency, and effectiveness; help prevent and detect fraud, waste, and abuse; and strengthen accountability to the Congress and the public." At minimum, then, one would assume that the Fed's Inspector General is actively monitoring the extraordinary actions in which the Fed has been engaging since September. After all, nobody else is monitoring or even can monitor any of that, since the Fed will not tell anyone what it is doing.

Yesterday, the Fed's Inspector General, Elizabeth Coleman, appeared before the House Financial Services Committee and was questioned by Rep. Grayson about her office's oversight duties. Just watch this five-minute question-and-answer session to get a sense for the true breadth of decay and corruption in our political and financial classes and for what a sorry joke the concept of "oversight" is in Washington:..."

[William27]

7. HR 1207

Thought you should know its 156 now.

[Skip Intro]

8. Can't R but I can K. Sponsors up to 190 - mostly repukes. Why?

[slipslidingaway]

9. Federal Reserve Transparency Petition Update: Success

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=114&topic_id=65869&mesg_id=65869

"To all here who signed the petition:

Federal Reserve Transparency Petition Update: Success
Zero Hedge

We are happy to announce that the HR 1207 "Audit The Fed" Bill is now one large step closer to reality, having garnered the necessary 218 co-sponsors to ensure passage. It has, in fact, 222 co-sponsors as of today and more are appearing by the hour. Please click here for the official press release.

Many thanks to all readers who directly and indirectly helped: as recently as a month ago people said this initiative was a waste of time. This is indeed a big victory for the grass roots freedom and transparency movement. Next up: seeing the bill through a committee process and getting it to the House floor for a vote, culminating in a transparent and auditable Federal Reserve."

[slipslidingaway]

10. kick for renewed interest n/t

[jacksmind]

11. We all know RP's views

Everyone knows about the libertarian hatred for the Fed. Ron Paul and Peter Schiff would be happy if they did away with the Fed and we all went back to a gold standard. We all want transparency, but I--and I hope you too--am going to approach this in an agnostic fashion: Maybe this is a uber evil organization that only causes harm, or maybe there's a reason that almost every single Economist Nobel Laureate (outside the values-driven Austrian school) from the conservative liberty-loving Miton Freedman, to the ultra-liberal Paul Krugman to almost every country in the nation (the US since 1913) think there is a place for Monetary policy in this world. I don't know about you, but I'm going to learn as much about this as possible. Let's not get all our info from Zietgheist the Movie and move on to the economics blogs and wikipedia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjULF_Xg6Ps

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/US_Historical_Inflation_Ancient.svg

Maybe this isn't so much about HR1207, but about all the loonies who can't even answer the questions:

Why would Bernanke say the Fed is important?
Why would Bernanke say the Fed needs to set interest rates independently and have a certain level of secrecy?

These are important questions. I'm just sayin...

[wildbilln864]

13. are you a banker?

I'm just askin...

[Reform]

12. I Rec in memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

On June 4, 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest. With the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy declared that the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business. The Christian Law Fellowship has exhaustively researched this matter through the Federal Register and Library of Congress. We can now safely conclude that this Executive Order has never been repealed, amended, or superceded by any subsequent Executive Order. In simple terms, it is still valid.

When President John Fitzgerald Kennedy - the author of Profiles in Courage -signed this Order, it returned to the federal government, specifically the Treasury Department, the Constitutional power to create and issue currency -money - without going through the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. President Kennedy's Executive Order 11110 gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority: "to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury." This means that for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation based on the silver bullion physically held there. As a result, more than $4 billion in United States Notes were brought into circulation in $2 and $5 denominations. $10 and $20 United States Notes were never circulated but were being printed by the Treasury Department when Kennedy was assassinated. It appears obvious that President Kennedy knew the Federal Reserve Notes being used as the purported legal currency were contrary to the Constitution of the United States of America.

[wildbilln864]

14. thank you! eom