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Transparency is required



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Published: May 2, 2009

Last week, U.S. Reps. Ed Towns and Dennis Kucinich issued letters from the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. These letters highlight the lack of response by these men to produce documents pertaining to an investigation of the alleged strong-arming by these two institutions in the Bank of America acquisition of Merrill Lynch last year. The fact that they are now expanding the investigation into the matter and using much more forceful language for compliance is telling.

For all of the talk about government being more transparent, I find it interesting that Peter Welch, who sits on this same committee, has not joined over 100 of his colleagues in cosponsoring legislation which would provide transparency into one of these institutions — the Federal Reserve. HR1207, The Federal reserve Transparency Act, would require a much needed and never performed audit of the Fed.

The Federal Reserve is a private banking cartel which has been controlling our monetary policy for the last 96 years. It's about time Congress acted on behalf of the American people. An entity which has so much control over taxpayer money ought to open its books and prove that it has been acting with the best interest of Americans in mind, not the best interest of banks which have proven their instability and reckless regard for the citizens of this country. Please call Peter Welch and urge him to co-sponsor HR1207.

Jessica Bernier

Barre







READER COMMENTS


Jessica, great letter!

You are 100 percent correct. More transparency is needed. We're talking about an unimaginable amount of taxpayer money being sent to.... ?? So far, the Fed has refused to say, at least in specific. It's one thing to say that Bank of America received ten billion dollars. But let's break that down. How much of that money went to which departments of the bank? Departments directed by whom? What did the bank's management do with *our* money??

I find it interesting that according to Rep. Welch's own web site (www.welch.house.gov) Representative Welch called for "greater transparency" in the matter of the AIG bailout as recently as March 11. What happened? Is Mr. Welch no longer in favor of transparency??

Remember, it takes one thousand million dollars to create a billion.

People, we're talking about HUNDREDS of thousands of millions of dollars of taxpayer money that constituted the most recent bank bailouts. This is a debt that will doubtless still be on the books for generations to come. Don't our grandkids deserve better than this? Don't they at least deserve to know where all that money went??

HR 1207 simply asks for some transparency on the part of the Federal Reserve.

If you would like to see Representative Welch sign on as a co-sponsor to HR1207, call his Washington D.C. office at (202) 225-4115.

What's wrong with a little transparency?
-- Posted by K C on Sun, May 3, 2009, 10:04 pm EST

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We can go into a conversation about whether or not an international cartel with the power to create money should serve as central bank to a nation that was founded without one or we can talk about the issue at hand.

Regardless of how you feel about central banking or American monetary policy over the last 96 years, the Federal Reserve needs to be audited. The American people have a right to know what's going on with their money.
-- Posted by Jessica Bernier on Sun, May 3, 2009, 7:12 am EST

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Between the 1830's and the 1860's there was no Federally controlled banking. A number of recessions, caused by knee jerk reactions of locally controlled banks necessitated reinstatement of a Federal control. Unfortunately, and lately, the Feds haven't been minding the chicken coop as tightly as they used to. This needed change. (Obviously)
This country was founded on a central bank concept. With few exceptions, it has functioned as Alexander Hamilton conceived it. Only when some ill informed individuals meddled with it's concept has it failed to serve it's function.
-- Posted by CJ maloney on Sat, May 2, 2009, 5:58 am EST

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