A bipartisan effort to force transparency on the Federal Reserve is suddenly in jeopardy after a House Financial Services Committee member introduced an amendment that would let the multi-trillion dollar organization continue throwing tax dollars around in secret.But, I think the evil bastards have shown a little more of their cards than they realize. Yes, the devil is in the details, but just look at the details they want to hide:
Rep. Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has introduced an amendment intended as an alternative to the measure to audit the Federal Reserve introduced by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson's (D-Fla.) . But instead of increasing transparency, as the amendment claims to do, Watt's measure would instead make the institution more opaque.
Watt pitched his amendment in a letter to colleagues circulated Tuesday. "While my amendment will certainly fall short of demands by those intent on destroying the independence (if not the existence) of the Fed, the critics of my amendment will have to concede...that my amendment will provide transparency of the Fed's financial operations that will be completely unprecedented," he wrote.
In fact, the critics are conceding no such thing. "The Watt Amendment, as written today, actually places new restrictions on the little authority that exists, such as it is, for independent auditing of the Fed," Grayson said. "It keeps in place all existing restrictions and adds four more. So I don't see why anybody would reasonably think that it creates unprecedented authority to audit the Fed."
The devil, as always, is in the details. While Watt's amendment talks a big game about opening up the Fed to a complete audit, all of the new powers granted must be carried out "each case in accordance with subsections (b) and (e)."
Those subsections of the current law delineate the many restrictions that an auditor confronts when seeking to audit the Fed. Watt's measure not only leaves those in place but requires all audits to abide by them.
And in addition to the current restrictions in place, it creates new ones. An auditor could not look at loans or liquidity arrangements the Fed enters into, the terms of those arrangements, or the effect of those loans and other liquidity deals on "reserves, the balance sheet or financial condition of a Federal reserve bank or the Federal Reserve System."
The measure could come for a vote anytime this week....
"The new exemptions are described as limited but they are extremely broad," Grayson said. They're so broad, in fact, that there would be very little left for an auditor to look into. What could an auditor check up on?
"Count the pencils on the desks," Grayson speculated. "Perhaps check on proper Metro card usage."
An auditor could not look at loans or liquidity arrangements the Fed enters into, the terms of those arrangements, or the effect of those loans and other liquidity deals on "reserves, the balance sheet or financial condition of a Federal reserve bank or the Federal Reserve System.""Loans or liquidity arrangements" say wouldn't that cover gold swaps, and the more than a trillion dollars of junk the Fed has loaned against over the last year for the benefit of big banks?
The dirt is just where Ron Paul suspected it was, and like a murderer trying to hide a evidence when a detective is in the room, the Fed is trying to hide its crimes while Ron Paul is in the room. Paul has smoked the Fed out. Now is not the time to give one inch to the Fed's attempt to cover up its dirty deeds. They want to hide the loans and liquidity arrangements, I say audit the loans and liquidity arrangements first. That's where the smoking gun is. Bury the Watt Amendment and start the investigation, now.
Strictly speaking, the HuPo writer is wrong to refer to the Fed throwing around "tax dollars," right? Yes, when the Fed dilutes purchasing power, it hurts US taxpayers, but only because they overlap with the group of people holding US dollars.
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking, you are correct. But, my focus was on what Watt did to the bill and not the HuffPo writer's misunderstanding of the relationship between the taxpayer and the Fed.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of like you standing on a corner with a fire truck headed down the street with lights blaring and horn sounding, and you say something like, "I didn't see the fire truck use his right turn signal when he turned the corner." All very true but pay attention to the F'ing siren and lights.
I wrote Grayson regarding testimony he received from FED council, Alvarez. Grayson asked, "Does the FED have possession of all the gold on it's books?". Alvarez said yes. Grayson asked could that be audited and Alvarez said yes (the video is here).
ReplyDeleteWind forward and a google index reveals there are questions about the quality of the glitter of today's gold supply. When Robbery Rubin was SoT Embezzler and Chief for the Clinton whore house, before he became lead dealer for the 3 Card Monte Casino, Citi Group, he shipped some gold bars to Hong Kong. Some of those bars, about 60 tonnes, if we accept the reports, ended up in China. When they were audited by Chinese officials they were found to be Gold (1150$/oz) plated tungsten bars (.007$/oz). There's a humorous aggregation of that tale here.
There's a lot of noise in the COMEX . I cannot sort rumor from fact, or ETF pushers from ETF deniers, but Obama is sure eating up a lot of clock in China - and, we should note, to the detriment of the USD.
Should the language in Watts (is he Barney Frank's new beau?) bill be an attempt to dilute the power congress currently has to audit the FED's gold reserves, then it's a sure bet all that glitters is not gold in the vaults of the Federal Reserve. We should also note that the pretentious Mr Franks and Mr Watts are at the top of the Bankster bribes and gift list. They've both been in Washington DC so long that they have an acute case of K-Street Johnny Boy Herpes.
Does Watt's bill remove the ability of the US congress to audit the the FED's gold reserves - I mean a metallurgical audit. Now beware - if a metallurgical audit was able to show that some of the bricks in the FED's vaults were counterfeit it would be devastating - apocalyptic. We need the truth. Will those that we hope a truly trying to penetrate the veil of FED secrecy turncoat, and allow the lie to continue, once the magnitude of the lie is revealed, that is the question. That is the only question.