2009 Good Legislation - HR 1207
Our National Debt has always gone up. Why? The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 would be a huge step in the direction of changing this. HR 1207, introduced in the US House of Representatives on February 26, 2009 by Congressman Ron Paul, and aims to bring transparency to the auditing and reporting of the Federal Reserve, which has always been shrouded in secrecy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Transparency_Act - - - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PC9fkLMZmo - - - watch this video)
If passed, the bill will force the Fed to give a public accounting of the trillions of taxpayer bailouts. (http://www2.whidbey.net/zipmont/revamp/loot.html) Watch this one closely. Sure, corruption could potentially still operate within the confines of such oversight (like it does with FISA or the SEC for example), but this would be a step in the right direction.
As long as the FED maintains the level of power that they currently enjoy, we will remain light years from anything remotely resembling popular government. The US dollar is unique in that it is the world reserve currency. This unique distinction allows the FED to print their way out of anything, such as our massive trade imbalance. Problem is, this gets tacked onto our national debt. The Treasury must issue bonds to get those dollars, dollars which we and our children now owe to the Fed. And how much did it cost the FED to print the dollars? Pennies on the dollar. And they make interest to boot. We import vast quantities of goods and services without paying for them. Unique? Certainly. Sustainable? Temporarily.
Nor are our entitlement systems properly funded. Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security owe close to 100 trillion dollars, but where's the money? They are unfunded. Many still believe they are entitled to retirement benefits, yet benefit payments are anything but guaranteed ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States - under "Trust Fund" ). This is similiar to Fannie Mae, which is widely believed to be implicitly backed by the US Government. This is simply not so. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae - under "No Actual Guarantees"). Meanwhile Fannie Mae is given massive leverage via exemption from normal capital/asset ratio requirements ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae - under "Federal Subsidies") and uses derivatives to hedge its cash flow. ( (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fannie_Mae - under "Accounting")
All the above are forms of "jiggering the metrics". They all have contributed to perpetrate a fraudulent "easy money" system designed to prolong the life of a party that will have a predictable net effect: a huge transfer of wealth. The longer the illusion continues, the more looting that can be done by the financial elite, who we can be sure won't get caught holding the bag..
By the way, the national debt is projected to double under President Obama - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt (under "Calculating and Projecting the Debt")
"Yet debt is the Viagra of a growth economy in middle age. It provides an appearance of robust function when in reality we are borrowing ourselves into a financial hole."
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9903.rowe.growth.html
"The result is like a car with a gas gauge that goes up as the fuel tank gets lower. The national accounts portray a nation getting richer, when in fact it is draining itself dry."
(http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/GDPtest1.pdf)
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Update: In May of 2010, the obama administration announced that it supported a FED audit.
Obama administration now supports Fed audit - (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37003798/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/)
Unfortunately, they do not
support Ron Paul's version of
it. So the new bill,
with the help of Bernie Saunders, will be a watered down, toothless
version of the original, real one, and will not provide transparency
for what the FED is doing overseas with foreign governments, central
banks and financial institutions. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTjuZAQjj-0&feature=youtube_gdata)