@ 0:00 – Half Trillion $ per year trade deficit. Our government continues to do all it can to prevent Americans from saving.

@ 0:45 – Bailing out Greece creates moral hazard for nations and creditors & punishes responsible states.

@ 3:45 – Jobs bill & payroll tax holiday is a gimmick. It creates incentive to fire someone and hire a replacement at a discount. All the bill does is let politicians take credit for hires that will probably happen anyway.

@ 8:00 – This alludes to the Fed’s reluctance to raise interest rates. The Fed has painted itself into a corner. It needs to raise interest rates to stop bank from leveraging and lending out the massive quantities of money which have been printed, which would precipitate the collapse of the collar. But our phony economy and the big wall street firms with rule Washington are surviving on the easy money of artificially low interest rates. Peter Schiff discusses the Fed’s latest gimmick — paying banks to not lend money. It won’t work.

@ 9:20 – The Fed’s claim that they haven’t lost money on TARP is another obfuscation. They’ve bought crap from irresponsible banks. They won’t take a loss until they try to sell the crap.

See also: Greece is a poor country full of rich people [tax evaders]

Seems Greece can’t collect from its own citizens, so it’s going to collect from other Europeans.

Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
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Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Brown (D-OH)
Burr (R-NC)
Burris (D-IL)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Durbin (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagan (D-NC)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kirk (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Snowe (R-ME)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (D-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Wyden (D-OR)

(source)

A few days ago, the Fed announced that it had “earned” a record-high amount of money in 2009. Then it turned $46 billion over to the Treasury. Here we are in the midst of a serious recession, with the unemployment rate high, the housing market still in a slump, and the stock market making only small steps toward recovery. In this climate, the Fed is making profits.

That’s impressive, isn’t it? Unfortunately, the Fed’s huge earnings are a signal that the economy is still in terrible shape and that its condition is worsening.

Let us take a closer look at the Federal Reserve’s balance sheets (Read more from mises.org)

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) — The idea of secret banking cabals that control the country and global economy are a given among conspiracy theorists who stockpile ammo, bottled water and peanut butter. After this week’s congressional hearing into the bailout of American International Group Inc., you have to wonder if those folks are crazy after all.

Wednesday’s hearing described a secretive group deploying billions of dollars to favored banks, operating with little oversight by the public or elected officials.

We’re talking about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose role as the most influential part of the federal-reserve system — apart from the matter of AIG’s bailout — deserves further congressional scrutiny.

The New York Fed is in the hot seat for its decision in November 2008 to buy out, for about $30 billion, insurance contracts AIG sold on toxic debt securities to banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank AG, among others. That decision, critics say, amounted to a back-door bailout for the banks, which received 100 cents on the dollar for contracts that would have been worth far less had AIG been allowed to fail. (Read more from bloomberg.com)

This report is from Fortune. It says that the Federal Reserve System made $51 billion in 2009, and it returned over $46 billion to the government.

If you are a regular reader of my reports, you are well aware of this. I write articles on this at least once a year. Why? Because so few critics of the FED understand this. I keep getting questions on the forums about how the FED works.

The Federal Reserve System is not about making money at the expense of the government. It is about using a government-granted monopoly over money to regulate the economy to the benefit of a handful of large banks. This has always been its primary function.

The banking system is a cartel. The Federal Reserve System is the cartel’s protector and enforcer.

. . . .

Who owns the FED? Member banks. How much money did the FED make in profit? About $1.4 billion. That’s not bad on $51 billion of income. It’s about 2.7%. But it is a far cry from the standard criticism from anti-FED critics that the FED makes huge profits by creating money out of nothing.

For 2.7%, why does anyone care who owns the FED?

I have heard these anti-FED criticisms for 45 years. The FED is deservedly criticized, but not on this issue: profits.

The concern over a peripheral issue deflects serious criticism, namely, its control over the monetary base. It creates the economy’s boom-bust cycle. It never gets blamed for this by academic economists or the mainstream media.

The news release on what the FED paid to the Treasury is the first that I can remember in 45 years of monitoring the FED. It got a lot of coverage. (Read more from lewrockwell.com)

Fed Chief Edges Closer to Using Rates to Pop Bubbles
Bernanke Sees Monetary Policy as Potential Antidote, but Blames Lax Regulation — Not Central Bank Policies — for Housing Crisis

ATLANTA — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cracked the door open a bit more to the idea of raising interest rates if a new financial bubble emerges.

He also mounted a vigorous defense against critics who say it was the Fed’s low-interest-rate policies over the past decade that caused the last housing bubble. Instead, he said, the problem was lax regulation, which permitted banks to issue a slew of exotic mortgages that households later had trouble paying.

We must be especially vigilant in ensuring that the recent experiences are not repeated,” Mr. Bernanke said in a speech Sunday at the American Economic Association’s annual meeting here. Better regulation is his first line of defense against future crises. (Read more from online.wsj.com)

Commentary by Patrick Barron: The Fed is trying to do the impossible–pump massive amounts of money into the economy without causing another bubble. So, it thinks it can regulate away bubbles and malinvestment. This is possible only if its regulations are so onerous that they destroy production. The Fed should stop monetary inflation, stop monetizing the debt, and abolish financial regulations.

These matters are complex, and Congress is still in the midst of considering how best to reform financial regulation. I am concerned, however, that a number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions. Notably, some leading proposals in the Senate would strip the Fed of all its bank regulatory powers. And a House committee recently voted to repeal a 1978 provision that was intended to protect monetary policy from short-term political influence. These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States. (Read more from washingtonpost.com)

Here’s my translation:
“These matters are complex.” = SILENCE, SCUM! DO NOT QUESTION YOUR OVERLORDS!

“the legislative proposals . . . would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions.” = IF YOU SUCKERS KNEW WHAT WE WERE DOING, YOU’D NEVER STAND FOR IT.

“protect monetary policy from short-term political influence” = SECRECY

“the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks” = the global ambitions of my friends in the banking cartel

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) — Mark Pittman, the award-winning investigative reporter whose fight to open the Federal Reserve to more scrutiny led Bloomberg News to sue the central bank and win, died Nov. 25 in Yonkers, New York. He was 52.

Pittman suffered from heart-related illnesses. The precise cause of his death wasn’t known, said his friend William Karesh. (Read more from dailypaul.com)

I’m very impressed with Senator’s DeMint’s questioning. He’s done his homework.