Ron Paul, Author of 'End the Fed,' to Lead Fed Panel

[Newsjock]

Source: Bloomberg News

Representative Ron Paul, Texas Republican and author of "End the Fed," will take control of the House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve.

House Financial Services chairman-elect Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican, selected Paul, 75, to lead the panel's domestic monetary policy subcommittee when their party takes the House majority next month, the committee chairman said today.

... Paul, in an interview last week, said he plans a slate of hearings on U.S. monetary policy and will restart his push for a full audit of the Fed's functions.

"We are ready to hit the ground running, and I look forward to continuing our work in the next Congress," Bachus said.

Paul, who has introduced legislation to abolish the Fed, became nationally known during his 2008 presidential campaign. His campaign to audit the Fed picked up steam as the central bank deployed trillions of dollars in emergency loans in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Paul's bill gained the support of 320 of 435 members of the House and a portion of the measure ended up in the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul enacted this year.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/12/09/bloomberg1376-LD63FS07SXKX01-7FK799ENQRDBU2GMG792PCK8VF.DTL&tsp=1

[Taverner]

1. Nice.

Well, it was nice knowing ya!

[DJ13]

2. Could be fun

:popcorn:

[SylviaD]

14. Are we now supposed to support Ron Paul?

Is this another ethical and philosophical "compromise" we are supposed to choke down?

[Frank Booth]

29. Ron Paul's not a lockstep McConnel Republican.

He's a kook, but, unlike most of Congress, he's not owned by Wall Street. Some interesting information could come out of this.

[Recursion]

34. He's a Republican who talks about corporations being too powerful

There's a reason his best friend in Congress is Dennis Kucinich. Some of Paul's criticism of Obama as being a "corporatist" could have come from DU.

Paul's "solution" is to remove the government regulations that make corporations so powerful; I personally think it's too late -- that genie isn't going back into the bottle. But, hey, I'm all for a Fed audit.

[chatnoir]

64. His best friend in congress is Dennis? Well, blow me down...

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

49. i've always supported ron paul

in a general sense, in that, if all politicians were *like* him (not necessarily thinking like him, but just had the same philosophy of why they are in congress and who they represent) we'd have a pretty healthy democracy.

[boppers]

51. You know how long Democrats have opposed central banking?

Since the 1790's. It's what started the party.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic-Republican_Party

[Green_Lantern]

62. the Democratic party also once supported slavery...

It was a conservative party by today's standards.

[and-justice-for-all]

80. Next thing you will read is that...

"crybaby bonher and Mitch are not so bad..."

[DJ13]

19. Not hardly, but he WILL make Bernanke squirm

Thats what I meant by fun.

[polichick]

3. I'm with him on a full audit of the Fed - transparency is something we need...

...in DC big time - let's audit the Pentagon while we're at it!

[bluedigger]

4. I'm OK with that.

His ideology could actually be useful in that role. The Fed has been unsupervised for too long.

[davidwparker]

5. No lie. This is perfect. The (non-federal) Fed is location

central for the ponzi scheme called our economy.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Alan Grayson co sponsored the 2009 version of the audit bill

I am all for Rep Paul in this role.

[wilt the stilt]

7. The purpose of the fed

The Federal Reserve System (also known as the Federal Reserve, and informally as The Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created in 1913 with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, and was largely a response to a series of financial panics, particularly a severe panic in 1907.<1><2><3> Over time, the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System have expanded and its structure has evolved.<2><4> Events such as the Great Depression were major factors leading to changes in the system.<5> Its duties today, according to official Federal Reserve documentation, are to conduct the nation's monetary policy, supervise and regulate banking institutions, maintain the stability of the financial system and provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions.<6>

Now please, in 2007 it did stabilize the banking system. If the banking system collapsed in 2007 the panic you would have seen would have been pure chaos. You folks are siding with a freakin' nutcase(Ron paul). Take a look at the panics we had before the fed. Please read some history.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. the "FED" is really a bunch of private banks. The Bailout was Banks Robbery

we got screwed all the way around.

Its a scam. No accounting for the money.

[wilt the stilt]

11. It wasn't a scam

it was the last ditch effort to stabilize the banking system. If they went down we would have a run on the banks. I am as democratic as anyone but I also was a history and economics minor in college. You would not believe what would have happened if the banks had gone down.

[wilt the stilt]

13. All modern western countries have central banks

what would be your replacement if we ended the federal reserve(our central bank) like you people siding with Ron paul. In other words how would you stabilize the banking system how would you regulate the money supply and how would you police the banks? You people are advocating a "free market" banking system with no regulations.

[thelordofhell]

17. They would use Ayn Rand's magical banking robots of course

:sarcasm:

[jmowreader]

18. The GOP WANTS a "free market" banking system with no restrictions

And, as the GOP's derivatives regulations show, a "free market" banking system just works SO well...

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

22. "like you people" ???

:rofl:

[ProudDad]

26. No...

I advocate steady state local economies and Credit Clearing houses...

No banks required...

[Green_Lantern]

66. how would anyone travel out of state if each community

Had different money?

[mbperrin]

70. The Treasury Department is in charge of money. We had national

currency with no central bank for quite some time.

[Green_Lantern]

75. yeah but at that time money had to be backed by gold or silver

You couldn't have the fiat system we have today with a central body saying what the value of a dollar is.

Without the Fed a dollar would have no real value unless backed by something and there isn't enough gold in the world to cover our GDP.

[mbperrin]

76. The dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States

government. That is its value. All currency values are relative and are traded daily, nothing new about that. No government has ever been able to set a value on its currency.

Or they could put a nominal value on it, and if the market price of the currency was lower than the specie, great numbers of people would redeem it. That is why all nations abandoned specie redemption decades ago.

Please present an analysis to back up your flat statement.

[Green_Lantern]

81. I'm saying the value of the dollar is determined by the central

Bank through buying and selling of securities with the Treasury Dept.

The govt doesn't just say what a dollar is worth, money supply determines that.

[mbperrin]

84. What you are describing is rare. Don't take my word for it.

http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed44.html

U.S. Foreign Exchange Intervention

The U.S. monetary authorities occasionally intervene in the foreign exchange (FX) market to counter disorderly market conditions.

The Treasury, in consultation with the Federal Reserve System, has responsibility for setting U.S. exchange rate policy, while the Federal Reserve Bank New York is responsible for executing FX intervention.

U.S. FX intervention has become less frequent in recent years.




This is straight from the New York Fed. Please note the use of the words "policy" rather than "rates".

[Green_Lantern]

85. that article is talking about foreign exchange..

I wasn't talking about the Fed buying foreign currency.

I was saying the Fed buys and sells securities to and from the Treasury.

[mbperrin]

86. You're talking about Open Market Operations, which affects interest

rates, has nothing to do with value of the dollar, which can only be expressed in relation to other currencies.

I can see that you actually don't know enough to engage in any discussion on this topic, so I will bid adieu and wish you a fine day and a great life.

[Green_Lantern]

87. well I don't think I need to be an economist to know the benefits

Of central banks and that the Fed is a good thing.

Also your initial premise was that Treasury was able to handle national currency without central banking for quite awhile.

This began with that.

[quakerboy]

30. Would having an audit of the fed

make it impossible to have a fed? Are the central banks of other countries unaccountable to the the country's they serve?

I will be honest. I am woefully unaware of how other countries run their banking systems. I do not know the answers to my questions.

[Recursion]

35. It might expose the uncomfortably tenuous nature of capital

Or, more realistically, reveal that the M2 is much, much bigger than the Fed says it is, which would be an issue.

[Telly Savalas]

57. More oversight of the Fed would probably be a good thing

but any thread about Ron Paul and central banking would be skewing reality if it didn't observe that he's a nutjob.

[naaman fletcher]

20. What a load.

I'd love to know how you think the world managed to get by before the fed.

And besides, the Fed could have "stabilized the banking system" and "prevented it from going down" in ways that did not include bailing out the people that made it happen. Money could have been provided to keep the doors open while the equity and debt owners were wiped out and the assets transferred to new owners.

Instead the guys who made it happen, mostly with criminal behavior, are getting record bonuses. As a result, they will do it again.

[wilt the stilt]

21. Read about the panics and how our economy was before.

read some history. it will do you some good. It wasn't the fed that proposed the legislation that bailed out the banks it was Bush and Congress. lay the blame on the legislators who proposed the legislation. Paulson proposed the plan and he was part of the administration.

[The Green Manalishi]

23. I forgot - we haven't had a depression or recession since we created the fed!

[wilt the stilt]

24. once again read about how bad it was in the 1800's

and there were reforms after 1934. Please do some reading of history you won't sound so ignorant.

[ProudDad]

28. Read a little further...

It's CAPITALISM that caused the panics -- whether there's a Fed or Not is somewhat irrelevant...

[Creative]

33. Yes, and it's a beautiful day in Cuba.

Capitalist nations have the highest standards of living in the world.

[ProudDad]

38. And Cubans have a quality of life far beyond that in the USAmerican Empire...

I prefer Quality of Life...

[Creative]

41. So do I, that is why like you, I reside in the US.

[Telly Savalas]

58. Do they have overly restrictive immigration policies?

I'm certainly not saying "love it or leave it". I lived in another country for a few years and it was a great experience.

It just seems that if you think life in Cuba is better than in the United States, the rational course of action would be to move there.

[Green_Lantern]

69. Cuba has better quality of life? are you kidding?

I could understand if you said Denmark but Cuba?

[ProudDad]

40. US Life Expectancy Drops...

The U.S. currently ranks 38th in life expectancy, below most of our fellow developed nations.

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/387087/us_life_expectancy_drops_for_first_time_in_half_decade/

[Creative]

43. Well, if you are free to indulge in some of the things that are not good for you,

you may not live as long.

Still, I'd rather be free to make those choices, even it means that I might shave a couple of months off the end. Unfortunately, Cubans do not have that choice.

US life expectancy 78.44
Cuban life expectancy 78.72
Difference .28 (102 days)

http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=life+expectancy+in+the+us#met=sp_dyn_le00_in&idim=country:USA

[ProudDad]

44. U.S. Sick Care Costs: nearly $8000 per year

Cuba's $300 per year...

Difference: $7700 per year MORE for a lower life expectancy...

And a more miserable life as a wage slave in the USAmerikan Empire...

I prefer Quality of Life to Cost of Living...

[Creative]

45. If you are not free to choose, you have no quality of life.

Many Cubans complain about politics in medical treatment and health care decision-making. There is no right to privacy, patient's informed consent, or right to protest for malpractice. The patient has no right to refuse the treatment, including for religious or ethical reasons. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses cannot refuse blood transfusions and a Rastafarian cannot refuse an amputation on the grounds that it goes against Rastafari biblical teachings (Rastafari teaches that the body must be whole in order for it to resurrected on Judgement Day). As a result, the experience can be dehumanizing.<80> After spending nine months in Cuban clinics, Katherine Hirschfeld asserted in her paper "My increased awareness of Cuba’s criminalization of dissent raised a very provocative question: to what extent is the favorable international image of the Cuban health care system maintained by the state’s practice of suppressing dissent and covertly intimidating or imprisoning would-be critics?"<80>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba

[ProudDad]

50. Nice cherry picking...

Cute way to promote the USAmerican bullshit about Cuba...

But, of course, you read this section, right?

"An overall worsening in terms of disease and infant mortality rates was observed in the 1960s, but recovery occurred by the 1980s. Things have since improved considerably. AIDS is only one-sixth as common on a per-capita basis as in the United States. Like the rest of the Cuban economy, Cuban medical care suffered following the end of Soviet subsidies in 1991; the stepping up of the embargo at this time also had an effect. Cuba has one of the highest life expectancy rates in the region, with the average citizen living to 77.64 years old (just under the United States' 78.11 years."

And this, right?

"In 2005, Cuba had 627 physicians and 94 dentists per 100,000 population. That year the United States had 225 physicians and 54 dentists per 100,000 population"

<And if you don't have money it's pretty fuckin' hard to see one of those USAmerican physicians or dentists!>

And, of course you noticed these little factiods, eh?

"During the 90s the ongoing United States embargo against Cuba caused problems due to restrictions on the export of medicines from the US to Cuba.<40><41> In 1992 the US embargo was made more stringent with the passage of the Cuban Democracy Act resulting in all U.S. subsidiary trade, including trade in food and medicines, being prohibited.<40> The legislation did not state that Cuba cannot purchase medicines from U.S. companies or their foreign subsidiaries; however, such license requests have been routinely denied. In 1995 the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States informed the U.S. Government that such activities violate international law and has requested that the U.S. take immediate steps to exempt medicine from the embargo.<42> The Lancet and the British Medical Journal also condemned the embargo in the 90s.

A 1997 report prepared by Oxfam America and the Washington Office on Latin America, Myths And Facts About The U.S. Embargo On Medicine And Medical Supplies, concluded that the embargo forced Cuba to use more of its limited resources on medical imports, both because equipment and drugs from foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms or from non-U.S.sources tend to be higher priced and because shipping costs are greater. The Democracy Act of 1992 further exacerbated the problems in Cuba's medical system. It prohibited foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations from selling to Cuba, thus further limiting Cuba's access to medicine and equipment, and raising prices. In addition, the act forbids ships that dock in Cuban ports from docking in U.S. ports for six months. This drastically restricts shipping, and increases shipping costs some 30%."

There's much more about probably the best Health Care Infrastructure on Earth but you presumably learned how to read and can do the work yourself...

You might want to heed Mark Twain's advice: "It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." So far you've been removing all doubt...

[Green_Lantern]

73. by the life expectancy standard....

For one thing the US has more people living over 80 than Cuba(http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/wpp2006/WPP2006_Highlights_rev.pdf page 60)

Cuba is slightly better on infant mortality and better life expectancy at birth but Canada is better than Cuba in both regards and they're capitalist.

[LeftishBrit]

60. And if you're sick and can't afford health care, you have no quality of life

Moreover, providing free health care does *not* mean no tolerance for dissent. In the UK and other Europaean countries, free health care is available, and people certainly have the right to refuse treatment.

[Green_Lantern]

71. talk about slave wages---

In Cuba in 2005 the average wage was $16.70 a month http://www.allbusiness.com/public-administration/national-security-international/3974438-1.html

[No Elephants]

55. For some.

[Green_Lantern]

68. it's not capitalism...it was unregulated money markets

And selling assets that had no real value.

[The Green Manalishi]

36. Please watch who you're calling 'ignorant'

I'm quite well aware of economic history prior to 1900.

You've no more evidence that it's done good than anyone does that it's caused harm. IMHO the causes of the panics, particularly the bad ones of 1857 and 1893 might have been mitigated a bit by a central bank, but we've seen that there are limits to what a central bank can do, both here and in Europe, particularly when 'structural stupidity' such as land speculation (1837) gets out of hand.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be a fed at all, I *am* saying it should be, as with Fannie, Freddie, the pentagon and any other institution getting or using one taxpayer cent, frequently and thoroughly audited with every single transaction made public. It should, in any case, be roundly distrusted because it can very easily serve as a tool to manipulate markets for the benefit of TPTB.

[Green_Lantern]

82. I agree with that...

The Fed should be audited but never in a way that allows politicians to pressure the Fed into increasing or decreasing interest rates.

[No Elephants]

54. The Fed opposed the bailout? Bernanke and Paulsen never agreed? Greenspan

played no role in our current woes?

[Green_Lantern]

67. the world really didn't get by without central banking..

We had to create a national central bank to pay for our war of independence.

The economic downfall occurred due to lack of regulation, not central banking.

[wilt the stilt]

59. By the way your are basically quoting Beck and Skousen

Nice company you keep.

The Political Scene
Confounding Fathers
by Sean Wilentz
(page 4)

The popularity of Beck’s broadcasts, which now reach two million viewers each day, has brought neo-Birchite ideas to an audience beyond any that Welch or Skousen might have dreamed of. Several times a week, Beck informs his audience that socialists (whom he also sometimes calls Fascists or Communists) led by Obama have seized power, and that patriotic Americans must take their country back. His TV show for some time featured “Comrade Updates,” in which Beck described perfidy while the Soviet anthem played in the background. He attacks all the familiar bogeymen: the Federal Reserve System (which he asserts is a private conglomerate, unaccountable to the public); the Council on Foreign Relations (born of a “progressive idea” to manipulate the media in order to “let the masses know what should be done”); and a historical procession of evildoers, including Skousen’s old target Colonel House and Welch’s old target Woodrow Wilson. His sources on these matters, quite apart from Skousen’s books, can be unreliable. On September 22nd, amid a diatribe about House, Beck cited a passage from “Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” by Eustace Mullins. The book, commissioned in 1948 by Ezra Pound, is a startlingly anti-Semitic fantasy of how a Jewish-led conspiracy of all-powerful bankers established the Federal Reserve in service of their plot to dominate the world.


Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_wilentz#ixzz17or46XJu

[Green_Lantern]

65. the Fed is a govt. institution commissioned by Congress..

If you hate it so much would you prefer your boss pay you in shells?

[Green_Lantern]

63. I agree....some people around here were cheering when

The economy nearly went bust. That's why they hate the Fed---Paul hates it because it keeps the govt running, they hate it because it keeps the economy going.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

8. things are starting to get interesting

this should be good.

[girl gone mad]

10. I was happy to hear this.

This will get interesting, but the Fed has lost the support of the public and it has failed to fulfill its dual mandate.

[Green_Lantern]

83. money supply shouldn't be based on public approval...

If it was we'd have 0% interest rates.

[MindandSoul]

12. That's one Republican move that I would approve of!

[cowcommander]

15. The only man so viciously hated by both Republicans and Democrats

This won't end well... :popcorn:

[Kolesar]

16. Ron Paul comes off as such a flake that he won't be able to make a case

He will get "Ross Perot"ed. The banksters/media will have an opportunity to laugh at him like a fool and get away without any reform or investigation.

[David Zephyr]

25. Well, this might be a very good thing. Who knows?

But I'm watching.

:popcorn:

[molly77]

27. The Raleigh Durham NC area was crazy about bush

The bush sticker were gradually replaced with Ron Paul stickers. There is so much karma going on. Ron Paul is the perfect person to investigate the federal reserve.

[somone]

31. Popcorn worthy

let them at it

[krabigirl]

32. excellent news :)

[bulloney]

37. Does anyone think that someone appointed to chair a committee under a Republican House

will actually hold the Fed accountable and put it under the scrutiny that has been sorely missing since the Fed's inception?

[Blue_Tires]

39. if GOP leadership lets him do anything other than fire a few verbal zingers

for the populists, i'll eat my hat

Lest anyone forget, the Chamber of Commerce openly and unashamedly bought this new congress, and it will do their bidding...

[MellowDem]

42. The FED is good....

It is the American central bank and acts as a check and balance on the economy. The huge swings in the business cycle before the FED were very hard on the US economy. Lots of boom and bust, boom and bust. Of course Ron Paul is against the FED. Without the FED, expect more boom and bust and more power for private banks. I'm all for making the FED represent the people, but I still want it.

[krabigirl]

47. .....

[MellowDem]

48. Say something or don't bother posting...

I can't read minds.

[boppers]

52. Uhm, the boom and bust of the banks, you mean?

We created a centralized banking system, which has shown itself to be incredibly unstable, so we created a stabilizing agency....

How about backing the cart up, and not having a centralized banking system?

[MellowDem]

53. You can look at the data...

before the FED, the boom and busts were frequent and very large. After the FED, things are much more stabilized. The FED is a regulating agency of the economy. Deregulating our economy would not be a good idea. Every major country has a central bank to help control the growth of the economy. Big swings lead to a lot of inefficiency, besides bad times for the people. Stable markets are better.

[Green_Lantern]

74. who would print the money?

Would each state have their own currency?

How do you figure our centralized bank is unstable? When have they ever increased or decreased money in an unstable fashion?

[karynnj]

46. Kind of like John Bolton as Ambassador to the UN

[No Elephants]

56. Republicons selected him. Do we really expect good to come of this?

[Poboy]

72. Actually the corporatists tried to block his nomination, but the baggers raised hell, and they

relented. Kick for an accounting and exposure of Fed fraud.

[sarcasmo]

61. Kick!

[w4rma]

77. Very good. (nt)

[ProSense]

78. Krugman on Ron Paul

Krugman

I used that term — it’s probably not original, but who knows? — in a recent post about the increasingly obscure meaning of the money supply. The best example would surely be Ron Paul, who’s now going to have oversight over the Fed. If you read his stuff, it’s very clear: money is a well-defined quantity that the Fed controls, and inflation comes from — indeed is defined as — increases in that quantity.

What he means, I guess, is monetary base. Here’s the actual relationship between monetary base and inflation:

<...>

It’s also worth nothing that in normal times (not now), monetary base consists overwhelmingly of currency (bank reserves are normally very small), and the majority of US currency isn’t even being held in the United States.

It’s kind of terrifying, in a way, to realize that the politically dominant faction in America right now has a view of money, what it is, and how it works that hasn’t been true since the early 19th century, if it ever was.

[and-justice-for-all]

79. He is a libertarian and his son is a nut case...nt