With 250 House members signing on to Rep. Ron Paul’s bill calling for greater congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve, its usually reclusive chairman, Ben Bernanke, has taken to the airwaves to “re-brand” the central bank with appearances on 60 Minutes, PBS and elsewhere in the past week.
“Just because we meet in private to manipulate interest rates and the money supply, and to decide which corporations will get taxpayer bailout dollars, doesn’t mean the Fed is some kind of covert agency, unaccountable to the public, that controls the global economy like a marionette,” said Bernanke, addressing a townhall-style meeting in Kansas City, Missouri.
READ THE REST AT The Washington Examiner…
28 responses so far ↓
1 Darthmeister // Jul 28, 2009 at 9:16 am
“Transparency”? More like patchy fog and smoke and mirrors.
Does anyone else get the impression liberals use a different dictionary than we do?
2 Newsman // Jul 28, 2009 at 10:31 am
Sheesh Darth, according to your blather liberals can’t read. We just look at pix of Repubs doing their thing.
What is their thing anyway ?
Now there you go Darth, you can rant a whole page on that question ? Good luck buddy ! Give you something destructive to do for the day and evening.
3 Laughing@You // Jul 28, 2009 at 12:53 pm
“Does anyone else get the impression liberals use a different dictionary than we do?”
You may be onto something there, He Man!
When Democrats say “freedom” they mean the right to personal choice, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of another.
Repugs, on the other hand, seem to think “freedom” is their right to tell others what they can, and can not, do.
Democrats believe in personal freedom in our private lives. Neo-cons believe they have the right to intrude into the private lives of their neighbors. They believe they have a right to know what goes on in the bedrooms and doctors offices of other Americans.
Conservatives believe government, not individuals and families, should make the decisions in the most personal and intimate matters of life, while liberals recognize the individual’s right to privacy.
Wingnuts believe in freedom of religion, only so long as it does not conflict with their own religious views.
Republicans call “lockstep” freedom of expression, and descent to be un-American.
Democrats believe that “patriotism” requires a demonstrable contribution to country, while Republicans believe it is standing on the sidelines chanting slogans like, “Support the Troops”, “if you are not with us, you are against us”, and “Does anyone else get the impression liberals use a different dictionary than we do?”
Democrats support the troops by sending their own to serve.
Democrats believe, like our founders, that we are all in this together, and if your countryman is in need, it is your duty to help.
Democrats see the paying of taxes as an act of patriotism.
Republicans believe in “survival of the fittest”, while rejecting the rest of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”, and most other science.
Everthink?
4 Laughing@You // Jul 28, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Make that “Dissent”, will you?
5 upnorthlurkin // Jul 28, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Chuckles, you are truly mentally ill! You just defined the conservative belief system….which bears no resemblance at all to the modern day liberal agenda. It really did make me laugh though! If you believe even an inkling of what you wrote above, you are a conservative! You funny, funny guy!
6 Laughing@You // Jul 28, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Lurch,
See, I told you!
Just follow me, and I’ll lead you into the light.
Everthink?
7 R.A.M. // Jul 28, 2009 at 3:33 pm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/28/politics/main5192676.shtml
I just heard, (from CBS, go figure), there is a whistleblower who says SINator Chris Dodd DID INDEED know he was getting a sweetheart deal on his mortgage, which also means he commited a crime with the sweetheart “payback” deal he helped the mortgage company get.
The REAL question is, with this crime that has come to light, (complete with a witness), will the Democrat controlled Congress go after Dodd as they ALREADY would have with a Republican when there were only inuendos?
Hint: Don’t hold your breath. Dodd is the TIP of the Democrat “Culture of Corruption” Iceberg!
8 Laughing@You // Jul 28, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Well RAM, I just read your post 7 link. I think I should point out that it is from MSM, and I know how you here feel about their reliability.
Then there is the fact that the investigating committee is controlled by Democrats, and if they were as biased as you have indicated, they would never have had a hearing, let alone allowed Feinberg to testify.
Finally, there is the substance of the testimony Mr. Feinberg offered. “VIP Treatment” is a vague term to begin with and maybe you should concentrate on the money involved.
I don’t want to brag or anything like that, but Blockbuster once gave me VIP status, and I happen to have an Executive Membership at Costco, a AAA Plus Card, and I have an American Express Gold Card. Oh’, I forgot Home Depot thinks I’m pretty special too.
I would hope even a Republican Senator would receive special treatment.
The question must be: Did he get a rate he couldn’t get elsewhere? And was there a quid pro quo.
If there is, he should be removed from office, and an investigation should be made of the remaining senators.
If not, I guess you’ll just have to keep digging to find your pony.
Everthink?
9 onlineanalyst // Jul 28, 2009 at 8:22 pm
L@Y: When Democrats say “freedom” they mean the right to personal choice, so long as it does not infringe on the rights of another.
Repugs, on the other hand, seem to think “freedom” is their right to tell others what they can, and can not, do.
Democrats believe in personal freedom in our private lives. Neo-cons believe they have the right to intrude into the private lives of their neighbors. They believe they have a right to know what goes on in the bedrooms and doctors offices of other Americans.
Conservatives believe government, not individuals and families, should make the decisions in the most personal and intimate matters of life, while liberals recognize the individual’s right to privacy.
Wingnuts believe in freedom of religion, only so long as it does not conflict with their own religious views.
Republicans call “lockstep” freedom of expression, and descent to be un-American.
Dear lad: You obviously have not read any part of the Obamacare bills circulating in the House or the Senate. Your choices of treatment and doctors will be gone; your medical records will be part of a government data base, which will determine your treatment depending on how much of a “drain” you will be on the system; your choices of food and beverages will determine whether you are making “healthy” decisions, and you will be taxed or denied coverage accordingly.
It is the falsely named liberals who will determine end-of-life issues for the aged, the unborn, and the handicapped. The Obamao “science czar” is a believer in population control, having published multiple treatises on the issue.
It is the liberals (again, falsely named) who want to silence conservative talk radio via the misnamed Fairness Doctrine even though the liberals dominate most other media outlets. It is the liberals who make the most noises about controlling the Internet, another avenue for diverse opinion. In fact, there is already a “cyber czar,” who has a number of strikes against him for not overseeing the malfeasance among his staff.
It is ACORN and assorted union thugs such as SEIU who are disrupting peaceful T(axed) E(nough) A(lready) parties with in-your-face community organizer a la Alinsky methods. Assorted “progressive” (Marxist) groups have harrassed bank, insurance, and auto executives in their neighborhoods and around their homes. Free speech for me but not for thee is their motto.
“Liberals” dispensing condoms and abetting abortions with federal tax dollars is indeed an invasion of privacy and choice of individuals and families.
Dear lad, you do live in an alternative universe.
Has anyone imposed their faith on you via the government? The only ones that I see attempting to do so are Muslims, who are worming shari’a law into communities.
10 JamesonLewis3rd // Jul 28, 2009 at 8:53 pm
“VIP” in the Countrywide context is not the least bit vague.
11 Laughing@You // Jul 28, 2009 at 11:32 pm
OLA,
You obviously have not read any part of the Obamacare bills circulating in the House or the Senate.
You are correct. If you have read them, where can they be found?
Everthink?
12 Yield-Curve // Jul 29, 2009 at 12:32 am
The article: Ben “Systemic Risk” Bernanke proves that Bernanke knowingly maintained a strict monetary policy long after he knew of the sub prime problem as he knew it would cause of the “Depression”.
It shows that he probably engineered it on purpose!
If you want to sleep tonight, Don’t Read It!
“In contradiction to the prevalent view of the time, that money and monetary policy played at most a purely passive role in the Depression, Friedman and Schwartz argued that “the [economic] contraction is in fact a tragic testimonial to the importance of monetary forces” (Friedman and Schwartz, 1963, p. 300).
…..
The slowdown in economic activity, together with high interest rates, was in all likelihood the most important source of the stock market crash that followed in October.
In other words, the market crash, rather than being the cause of the Depression, as popular legend has it, was in fact largely the result of an economic slowdown and the inappropriate monetary policies that preceded it.
Of course, the stock market crash only worsened the economic situation, hurting consumer and business confidence and contributing to a still deeper downturn in 1930.”
Governor Ben S. Bernanke
Money, Gold, and the Great Depression.
At the H. Parker Willis Lecture in Economic Policy, Washington and Lee University,
Lexington, Virginia.
March 2nd, 2004
You can read also: Preparing for the Crash, The Age of Turbulence Update: 27/07/09., which tries to accomplish Greenspan Mission Impossible:
“That is mission impossible. Indeed, the international financial community has made numerous efforts in recent years to establish such oversight, but none prevented or ameliorated the crisis that began last summer.
Much as we might wish otherwise, policy makers cannot reliably anticipate financial or economic shocks or the consequences of economic imbalances.
Financial crises are characterised by discontinuous breaks in market pricing the timing of which by definition must be unanticipated - if people see them coming, then the markets arbitrage them away.
…
The clear evidence of underpricing of risk did not prod private sector risk management to tighten the reins.
In retrospect, it appears that the most market-savvy managers, although conscious that they were taking extraordinary risks, succumbed to the concern that unless they continued to “get up and dance”, as ex-Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince memorably put it, they would irretrievably lose market share.
Instead, they gambled that they could keep adding to their risky positions and still sell them out before the deluge. Most were wrong.“
Alan Greenspan
The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World [Economic Order?].
The Age of Turbulence: Plea for a New World Economic Order. explains the nature and causes of economic depressions and proposes a plausible alternative solution.
13 camojack // Jul 29, 2009 at 1:24 am
“Just because we meet in private to manipulate interest rates and the money supply, and to decide which corporations will get taxpayer bailout dollars, doesn’t mean the Fed is some kind of covert agency, unaccountable to the public, that controls the global economy like a marionette…”
Ummm…yeah, right. Transparent as a President who’s spent over $1,000,000 thus far to keep from releasing various records. Got it…
14 Darthmeister // Jul 29, 2009 at 9:40 am
OLA, nice fisking of neverthink’s warped idiocies. From political correctness to euthanasia to inflammatory racebaiting to school vouchers to “healthcare”, liberals are anything but the promoters of individual liberty and peace. The only “peace” they know is empowering government to take an ever larger piece of our pocketbooks.
15 Darthmeister // Jul 29, 2009 at 9:51 am
Democrats see the paying of taxes as an act of patriotism.
Buwahahahaha! If paying ever higher levels of taxes is “an act of patriotism”, this country would still be a colony of Britain.
Besides, aren’t the tax evading jerks (a good number of whom ironically serve in the Obamao administration) who represent your side of the aisle the ones who have been shown NOT to be very patriotic in properly filling out their 1040’s and paying their fair share of taxes?
Don’t lecture us, troll.
16 Laughing@You // Jul 29, 2009 at 11:47 am
“Buwahahahaha! If paying ever higher levels of taxes is “an act of patriotism”, this country would still be a colony of Britain.”
Once again Bazaaro, you demonstrate both your ignorance of American History and your willingness to twist whatever truth you do know to meet your immediate need in the lie you happen to be telling at the moment.
“Taxation without representation” was ONE of the issues, but it was not just too much taxation alone, your ignorance. It was the strongly held perception that the colonists were not treated as British citizens.
I bet 99% of you self-aggrandized “patriots” who “tea bagged” recently don’t know that the Boston Tea Party was a result of the CUTTING of the crown’s taxes on tea imported into the colonies!!
All you phony “patriots”, are the same superstitious loons who have been susceptible to dozens of others scare tactics in the past.
You are the same ones Joseph McCarthy manipulated to produce chaos, and control through fear. You would have been right at home at the Salem Witch Trials, and at of the numerous lynchings that have marred our history. And you Darthmeister, are like the guy who always brought the torch or the rope.
Everthink?
17 onlineanalyst // Jul 29, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Cloward-Piven is not a Republican strategy. Look it up. Creating chaos and the hasty solutions to it are straight out of this playbook, and the Obamao administration are using it chapter and verse. Rahm Emanuel himself advised, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
18 Laughing@You // Jul 29, 2009 at 2:38 pm
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Like 9/11?
Everthink?
19 onlineanalyst // Jul 29, 2009 at 3:25 pm
L@Y: Here are a few tidbits from the HC bill that clearly violate Amendment IV:
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!! (Got that?)
Pg 58HC Bill – Govt will have real-time access 2 individs finances & a National ID Healthcard will b issued!
Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access 2 ur banks accts 4 elect. funds transfer!
Pg 304 L 17-19 BIG ONE HERE: Expedited Data Collection - Chapter 35 of Title 44 of USC SHALL NOT APPLY.( Folks, this gives the govt the right to access ur data any way the see fit.)
Pg 735 lines 16-25 For law enforce. purposes the Secretary-HHS will give Atty General access to ALL data.
PG 1003 9-11 National Med Dev Reg ‘‘(iii) other postmarket device surveillance activities” U WILL b tracked.
L@Y: I have posted several articles with links that detail some of the objectionable parts of this legislation. The more time that is allowed to elapse, the more flaws will be exposed.
20 Laughing@You // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:21 pm
OLA,
Thanks for your effort, but I was mainly interested in that part which caused you to write:
“It is the falsely named liberals who will determine end-of-life issues for the aged, the unborn, and the handicapped. The Obamao “science czar” is a believer in population control, having published multiple treatises on the issue.”
Could you get me just that part?
Everthink?
21 onlineanalyst // Jul 29, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Here is some information on the “science czar.” The comments following Treacher’s information adds more detail.
22 onlineanalyst // Jul 29, 2009 at 8:01 pm
L@Y: Watch this short documentary. Made several years ago, it paints a chilling future brought to us by futurist planners.
23 Laughing@You // Jul 29, 2009 at 9:01 pm
OLA,
“It turns out that John Holdren, Obama’s new “science czar,” has expressed some unusually radical ideas about stemming population growth. Or to put it more simply, he’s a totalitarian eugenicist”.
“In 1977 he co-authored (with Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich) the textbook Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, which discussed the possible role of a wide variety of solutions to overpopulation, ranging from voluntary family planning to enforced population controls. In 2009, as Dr. Holdren faced a vetting by a nomination committee of the US Senate, excerpts from “Ecoscience” were posted on the internet, and allegations spread that he had supported extreme measures of population control in 1977, and that he might therefore, presently support such policies. Holdren then testified to the Senate committee that he does not believe that government should have a role in determining optimal population size and subsequently stated that he has never endorsed forced sterilization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holdren
As it also turns out he was born on March 1, 1944, so I guess he’ll go easy on the old folks.
“Short Documentary”? It’s 58:33 long!
I’ll try to finish, but after 8 minutes, it’s pretty obvious it’s conservative propaganda.
Everthink?
24 onlineanalyst // Jul 29, 2009 at 10:18 pm
L@Y: Truly? It opens with some hits on George W. Bush. Watch it to the bitter end.
25 onlineanalyst // Jul 29, 2009 at 10:18 pm
L@Y: Truly? It opens with some hits on George W. Bush. Watch it to the bitter end.
26 Laughing@You // Jul 30, 2009 at 9:44 am
OLA,
OK, Dude, Dudess, or Dudette.
I watched the whole blinking thing! I was wrong about it being “conservative propaganda”.
OLA, did you ever listen to Art Bell’s “Coast to Coast”?
It was on in the east from 11pm till 5 or 6am. This is the same kind of Area 51, teleportation, ghost haunting, weather control, government mind control stuff. It would keep you awake, better than music, if you have to be up all night, but if you listened to it too much you may have difficulty sleeping at all.
This wacky video pieces together extreme pieces of of issues which might be of real concern, if done honestly, into something truly bazaar.
It is the kind of stuff that has become the staple of right-wing radio it it’s extreme exaggeration of relatively minor concerns, and it presentation of lie to it’s very gullible, and mostly paranoid audience.
You now owe me one hour of similar consideration should the occasion arise.
Everthink?
27 Laughing@You // Jul 30, 2009 at 9:49 am
change to: “in it’s extreme exaggeration”. And, ” its presentation of lies”
28 onlineanalyst // Jul 30, 2009 at 11:44 am
L@Y: I’m not big on conspiracy theories myself, but I do find it dismaying that there are people out there playing with these odd future scenarios.
The only time that I heard “Coast to Coast” happened when I was driving at four a.m. to the airport in hellacious rain caused by a tropical storm coming up the East Coast. The scenario was straight out of “It was a dark and stormy night”…er, morning, and the program definitely created some unease in me as did the driving conditions. As a rule, this is not my type of program, so I hear what you are saying. Insomniacs thrive on such nonsense.
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