“Last week I was very pleased that hearings were held on the independence of the Federal Reserve system. My bill HR 1207, known as the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, was discussed at length, as well as the general question of whether or not the Federal Reserve should continue to operate independently.

The public is demanding transparency in government like never before. A majority of the House has cosponsored HR 1207. Yet, Senator Jim DeMint’s heroic efforts to attach it to another piece of legislation elicited intense opposition by the Senate leadership.

The hearings on Capitol Hill provided us with a great deal of information about the types of arguments that will be levied against meaningful transparency and how the secretive central bankers will defend the status quo that is so beneficial to them.

Claims are made that auditing the Fed would compromise its independence. However, by independence, they really mean secrecy. The Fed clearly cherishes its vast power to create and spend trillions of dollars, diluting the value of every other dollar in circulation, making deals with other central banks, and bailing out cronies, all to the detriment of the taxpayer, and to the enrichment of themselves. I am happy to challenge this type of ‘independence’.

They claim the Fed is endowed with special intellectual abilities with which to control the market and that central bankers magically know what the market needs. We should just trust them. This is patently ridiculous. The market is a complex and intricate thing. No one knows what the market needs other than the market itself. It sends signals, such as prices, that should be reacted to and respected, not thwarted and controlled. Bankers are not all-knowing and cannot ignore the rules of supply and demand. They might act as if they are, but their manipulation of the market just ends up throwing it wildly off balance, which gives us the boom and bust cycles.

They claim the Fed must remain apolitical. No organization is apolitical that relies on the President to appoint the Chairman. In fact, it is subject to the worst sort of politics – power to create trillions of dollars and affect the value of every dollar in the country without the accountability of direct elections or meaningful oversight! The Fed typically enacts monetary policy that is favorable to particular administrations close to elections, to the detriment of long term considerations. They do this partly because of the political appointee process for the Chairmanship.

The only accountability the Federal Reserve has is ultimately to Congress, which granted its charter and can revoke it at any time. It is Congress’s constitutional duty to protect the value of the money, and they have abdicated this responsibility for far too long. This was the issue that got me involved in politics 35 years ago. It is very encouraging to finally see the issue getting some needed exposure and traction. It is regrettable that it took a crisis of this magnitude to get a serious debate on this issue.” (Read more from dailypaul.com)

This is dated news (from early June) but relevant for all my Iowa friends.

“Ron Paul’s Bill to audit the Fed continues to get more support from the Congress. Nancy Pelosi will be forced to put it to a vote and it will probably pass. That is the good news.

The bad news happened in the Senate at the hands of a Republican senator. The companion Senate bill to HR 1207 is S 604 which has been sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Last week, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa pencilled in amendments to the bill in committee which would exempt the Fed from showing the public anything of importance. Senator Grassley thought to do this in such a way that his hand would not be identified in this cowardly act at the behest of the bankers, but the pencil marks are all over the Internet. You can see how Grassley gutted the Bill here.” (Read more from reasontraditionsandliberty.blogspot.com)

H.R. 1207, Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency of 2009, which would audit the Federal Reserve has over 260 co-sponsors (a majority of the house!), yet the house leadership ignores it.

S. 604, The Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, is the companion bill in the senate. Getting thirteen co-sponsors is encouraging.

It won’t be easy for our political leadership to continue ignoring this public mandate. On the other hand, the masters of the universe behind the federal reserve are very powerful, and usually get what they want from politicians and media.

Co-Sponsors so far:
BARRASSO, JOHN (R – WY)
BENNETT, ROBERT F. (R – UT)
BROWNBACK, SAM (R – KS)
BURR, RICHARD (R – NC)
CHAMBLISS, SAXBY (R – GA)
CRAPO, MIKE (R-ID)
DEMINT, JIM (R-SC)
FEINGOLD, RUSSELL D. (D – WI)
HOFE, JAMES M. (R – OK)
ISAKSON, JOHNNY (R – GA)
LINCOLN, BLANCHE L. (D – AR)
MCCAIN, JOHN (R. – AZ)
SANDERS, BERNARD (I – VT)
VITTER, DAVID (R – LA)

(Read more at dailypaul.com)

Have you written to your Senator?

Aide: Netanyahu told German FM West Bank can’t be ‘Judenrein’
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used the Nazi term ‘Judenrein’ in a recent meeting with the German foreign minister to condemn the Palestinian demand that West Bank settlements be removed, a confidant of the premier has said.

‘Judea and Samaria cannot be Judenrein,’ the confidant quoted the prime minister as telling Frank-Walter Steinmeier earlier this week.

Asked how Germany’s top diplomat responded to hearing the term used by the Nazis to refer to areas ‘cleansed of Jews’, the confidant said, ‘What could he do? He basically just nodded.’

According to the confidant, Netanyahu had encouraged cabinet colleagues to deploy the term in their defense of the settlements and of Israel’s insistence that Palestinians recognize it as a Jewish state.” (Read more from freerepublic.com.)

This originally appeared on haaretz.com, though they’ve since sterilized the article’s title.

Invoking Nazi language is disgusting. Israel’s settler movement and their apologists steal land from Palestinians and anyone who suggests they give it back is called a Nazi.

See Representative Press‘s video about slandering Israel’s critics:

I think open criticism and honest debate would make Israel stronger. It is the squelching and slandering of Israel’s critics that causes true anti-semitism to fester.

“OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Israeli minister of transportation and road safety Yisrael Katz has ordered a change in all Arab names of Palestinian towns and cities that appear on signs on the streets into Hebrew names.” (Read more from desertpeace.wordpress.com)

When I first found this story, it included a video of a Palestinian man in Gaza talking about how he was used as a human shield – held at gunpoint and made to enter Palestinian homes ahead of Israeli soldiers.

That video is gone. Now there’s a video of an Israeli spokeswoman denying the allegations and promising investigations.

“A group of soldiers who took part in Israel’s assault in Gaza say widespread abuses were committed against civilians under “permissive” rules of engagement.

The troops said they had been urged to fire on any building or person that seemed suspicious and said Palestinians were sometimes used as human shields.

Breaking the Silence, a campaign group made up of Israeli soldiers, gathered anonymous accounts from 26 soldiers.” (Read more from news.bbc.co.uk)

I suspect the masters of the universe didn’t like all the Goldman hate and made some phone calls to friends in the media.

Goldman Sachs’ $2.7B profit shows firm’s prowess
“Goldman Sachs is emerging as the king of post-meltdown Wall Street. The New York-based banking giant took advantage of improving markets to widen the gap between itself and its competitors, earning more than $2.7 billion during the second quarter.” (from news.yahoo.com)

How the hell can these guys be praised for their prowess after taking BILLIONS of dollars from people like me and you???

That’s it, I’m adding www.goldmansachs666.com to my blogroll. That’ll show them!

“Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street leviathan that is heavily invested in the cap-and-trade carbon market scam, has admitted it has developed and used software that can manipulate such financial markets.

The revelation came during proceedings in a legal case with enough plot twists to make even John Grisham proud; it was made, not by Goldman, but by an assistant U.S. Attorney.” (Read more from goldmansachs666.com)

If I understand correctly, the accusation is this: Goldman Sachs’ trading software cheats by doing their own trading split seconds before a client’s big trades go through. That way they profit from the market swings induced by their client’s trades. You can read more about it here.

From 3:20 to about 4:30, this video covers the suspect software:

As much as I sympathize with former Soviet states, this is none of our damn business.

“(AP) – A U.S. guided missile destroyer dropped anchor Tuesday in Georgia’s Black Sea waters ahead of joint naval exercises seen as a show of American support for the former Soviet nation crushed in last year’s war with Russia.” (Read more from google.com)

Dear Government,

Please find ways to keep yourselves entertained that don’t involve taking my money and jeopardizing my safety. I recommended getting hammered for the length of your terms in office. I’ll even chip in to buy the booze.

Respectfully,
LostRepublic.us

I wanted to share an excerpt from an email I sent to a friend:

. . . but what you allude to later is a version of what we Austrians call Say’s Law, Supply = Demand, or at least their tendency toward equilibrium. It contradicts Marx’s claim of capitalism always overproducing. It also contradicts the super-popular Keynesian notion that all problems can be solved by creating artificial demand with money from a printing press, i.e. money that isn’t backed by production. (See Paul Krugman, or just about any other main-stream voice in economics.)

In contrast with the Keynesian notion that demand can be manipulated, Austrians believe demand can only increase if supplies of goods and services increase.

Another was to look at Say’s law is that you produce in proportion to your desire for other goods and service. You produce legal services, I (hopefully) will produce books, a farmer produces corn – then we use our production to create demand for other goods and services. Indirect exchange.

So don’t believe people who tell you that government, which produces nothing besides a very inefficient postal service (Hidden History: Post Office sues Cub Scouts to maintain monopoly), can “create demand” by spending money that’s either printed from thin air, or forcibly taken from the actual producers.

“The US administration has been saying it sees the first green shoots of economic recovery. However consumer spending remains low in America, and some experts argue the signs are misleading.

What can you get for a dollar? Not much these days.

Its value dropped considerably at the end of June – and this is despite the Obama administration announcing signs of an economic rebound.

Experts think these are false claims of hope. They see a gloomy future for the dollar and say the $787 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year is only making things worse.” (Read more from geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com)

The Obama administration is quickly creating a world in which business success DEMANDS political connections. Here, Congressman Brad Sherman alludes to investors already making business decisions based on which companies have the most political pull.

(Yes, I’m still bitter about Mark Sanford’s fall from grace)

Favorite Line (3:05): If continuing his affair with Monica Lewinski would have caused Clinton to change his position on any of these issues, I would have rented the hotel room, ordered the champagne, and told Hillary he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.

Jim Rogers on Gold Seek Radio 30 June 2009.