With very little notice the United States Senate voted 96 to 0 last week to require the Government Accountability Office to audit the Federal Reserve\u2019s emergency actions during and after the 2008 financial crisis.<\/p>\n
The measure was an amendment to legislation to overhaul the financial regulatory system and was proposed by socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). It was a watered down version of Sanders\u2019 original provision that would have subjected the Fed to continuing audits of its routine operations.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also weaker than the House-approved version that passed late last year which authorized audits of every item on the Fed\u2019s balance sheet. The two bills will have to be reconciled later and one of its sponsors in the House, Representative Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), is confident the stronger version will prevail in conference. The bill\u2019s original sponsor, Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) isn\u2019t so sure.<\/p>\n
We can only hope Grayson is right. The White House, the Fed and most Senators opposed the stronger version but agreed to the weaker version. That means they feel it doesn\u2019t have any teeth. As evidence, an amendment by Senator David Vitter (R-La.) that would have mirrored the House language failed on a 62 to 37 vote. Sanders and six Democrats joined 30 Republicans in favor. (As an aside: Liberals, read that last sentence again and answer\u2014who is it that is the party of the banksters? Still not sure? Then what about President Obama\u2019s trip to New York May 13 to raise money for the Democrat party from Wall Street \u201cfat cats\u201d at $15,000, $30,000 and $50,000 a plate?)<\/p>\n
You may remember that back in 2008 the fraud the biggest banksters had been pulling off began to unravel. Their scheme of playing both sides against the middle\u2014selling off their debt falsely sold as safe bets while placing side bets they would collapse\u2014fell apart. But it was good while it lasted because in the beginning they profited both ways.<\/p>\n
So President George W. Bush abandoned free market principals to save the free market system. Big banksters Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson\u2014Bush\u2019s Fed chairman and Treasury secretary\u2014convinced him to loot the U.S. Treasury to pay off their buddies at the other big banks. The result was the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion bailout of the financial institutions.<\/p>\n
Bernanke, as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in 2004, said in a speech, \u201cwe are in a new era, where economic volatility has been permanently eliminated.\u201d It seems he missed on that prediction.<\/p>\n
As for Paulson, prior to being named Treasury secretary he was the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Coincidently, Goldman Sachs got $10 billion in TARP funds.<\/p>\n
With Bernanke\u2019s incompetent pronouncements and Paulson\u2019s ties to Goldman Sachs, you had the foxes guarding the henhouse\u2026 and one of them had no clue. And President Barack Obama\u2019s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is no better. As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York he worked with Paulson to bail out American International Group (AIG)\u2014the firm that paid bonuses of about $165 million to its executives\u2014and together the two decided to let Lehman Brothers fail.<\/p>\n
Since the bailouts some in Congress have been trying to learn from the Fed who got what and when did they get it. So far all they\u2019ve gotten is silence.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s what the audit bill is all about; trying to pry the lid off the secret Fed.<\/p>\n
But you must understand what the Fed is. It is neither Federal (part of the U.S. Government) nor does it hold reserves, writes G. Edward Griffin in his book, The Creature from Jekyll Island<\/em>.<\/p>\n It was formed by six conspirators who met in secret in 1910 on Jekyll Island, Ga., writes Antony C. Sutton in his book, The Federal Reserve Conspiracy<\/a><\/em>. Those men were Senator Nelson Aldrich (father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and a representative of the Standard Oil crowd); German banker Paul Warburg, of the German bankers MM Warburg of Hamburg and Kuhn Loeb in the U.S.; Henry P. Davison, partner in J.P. Morgan and Chairman of Bankers Trust Company; Benjamin Strong, vice president of Banker\u2019s Trust; Frank Vanderlip, chairman of National City Bank; and Charles D. Norton, president of First National Bank.<\/p>\n