Today's
Stories
February 11 / 12, 2006
Ralph Nader
Bringing Democracy to the Federal Reserve
February 10, 2006
Carl
G. Estabrook
A US War Plan for Khuzestan?
Sen.
Russell Feingold
A Raw Deal on the Patriot Act
Roxanne
Dunbar-Ortiz
How Did Evo Morales Come to Power?
Saree Makdisi
The Tempest Over the Hamas Charter
Website of the Day
The
New York Art Scene: 1974-1984
February 9, 2006
Dave Lindorff
Bush
and Yamashita: War Crimes and Commanders-in-Chief
Mike Marqusee
The
Human Majority was Right About Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
How Conservatives Went Crazy: the Rightwing Press
Peter Phillips
Inside
the Global Dominance Group: 200 Insiders Against the World
William S. Lind
Rumsfeld the Maximalist: the Long War
Christine Tomlinson Innocent
Targets in the "Long War": False Positives and Bush's
Eavesdropping Program
Will Youmans
Church of England Votes to Divest from Israel
Robert Robideau
An American Indian's View of the Cartoons
Richard Neville
The Cartoons That Shook the World: All This from the Danes, the
Least Funny People on Earth
Peter Rost
The New Robber Barons
Website of the Day
Eyes Wide Open
February 8,
2006
Ron Jacobs
The
Once and Future Sly Stone: Soundtrack to a Riot
Stan Cox
Making
and Unmaking History with General Myers
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why
Bush's Wiretapping Program is Illegal and Unconstitutional
Robert Jensen
Horowitz's
Academic Hit List: Take a Class from One of the CounterPunch
16
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Bush Should Have Wiretapped FEMA and Chertoff
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Alberto Gonzales Channels Mark Twain
Don Monkerud
Covenant Marriage on the Rocks
David Swanson
Inequality and War
C.L. Cook
Nuking Ontario
Christopher
Fons
Chill Out Jihadis: They're Just Cartoons!
Jeffrey Ballinger
The Other Side of Nike and Social Responsibility
Website of
the Day
Encyclopedia of Terrorism in the Americas
February 7,
2006
Edward Lucie-Smith
An
Urgent Plea to Save a Small Estonian Museum from Neo-Nazis
Robert Fisk
The Fury: Now Lebanon is Burning
Paul Craig Roberts
Colin Powell's Career as a "Yes Man"
Neve Gordon
Why Hamas Won
Joshua Frank
The Hillary and George Show: Partners in War
Peter Montague
The Problem with Mercury: a History of Regulatory Capitulation
Jackie Corr
The
Last Best Choice: Public Power and Montana
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Rumsfeld's
Enforcer: the Secret World of Stephen Cambone
Website of the Day
Negroes with Guns
February 6,
2006
Christopher
Brauchli
Spilling
Blood: Two Sentences
Robert Fisk
Don't
Be Fooled: This Isn't About Islam vs. Secularism
John Chuckman
What Did Stephen Harper Actually Win?
Jenna Orkin
Judge Slams EPA for Lying About 9/11's Toxic Air
Paul Craig
Roberts
Who
Will Save America: My Epiphany
February 4
/ 5, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
"Lights
Out in Tehran": McCain Starts Bombing Run
Mike Ferner
Pentagon
Database Leaves No Kid Alone
James Petras
Evo Morales's Cabinet: a Bizarre Beginning in Bolivia
Alan Maass
Scare of the Union: Dems Collaborate with Bush on Surveillance
Fred Gardner
Annals of Law Enforcement: a Look Inside the San Francisco DA's
Office
Ralph Nader
Bush's
Energy Escapades
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Speaking in Tongues
Saul Landau
Freedom 2006: Buying Sex on the Net or Those Older Freedoms?
Laura Carlsen
Bad Blood on the Border: Killing Guillermo Martinez
James Brooks
Our Little Shop of Diplomatic Horrors
Mike Roselle
Hippies and Revolutionaries in Carcacas
John Holt
Black Gold, Black Death: Canada's Oil Sands Frenzy
Sarah Ferguson
Cops Suing Cops ... for Spying on Cops
William S.
Lind
Beware the Ides of March
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Price of Globalization: Free Trade or Free Speech?
Seth Sandronsky
The Color of Job Cuts in the Auto Industry
Derrick O'Keefe
Rumsfeld's Hitler Analogy
Michael Donnelly
Hop on the Bus
Ron Jacobs
Religion and Political Power
Elisa Salasin
RSVP to Bush
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Stew Albert
God's Curse: Selected Poems
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, LaMorticella and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Killer
Tells All!
February 3,
2006
Toufic Haddad
A
Parliament of Prisoners
Heather Gray
Working with Coretta Scott King
Tim Wise
Racism,
Neo-Confederacy and the Raising of Historical Illiterates
Conn Hallinan
Nuclear Proliferation: the Gathering Storm
Eva Golinger
Rumsfeld and Negroponte Amp Up Hositility Toward Venezuela
Daniel Ellsberg
The World Can't Wait: Invitation to a Demonstration
Dave Zirin
Detroit: Super Bowl City on the Brink
Robert Bryce
The
Problem with Cutting US Oil Imports from the Middle East
Website of
the Day
The Chavez Code
February 2,
2006
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Pentagon
Pork: How to Eliminate It
Stan Cox
Outsourcing
the Golden Years
Rachard Itani
Danes
(Finally) Apologize to Muslims (For the Wrong Reasons)
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan Five Years Later: Buildings Down, Heroin Up
Amira Hass
In
the Footsteps of Arafat: an Interview with Hamas' Ismail Haniya
Norman Solomon
When Praise is Desecration: Smothering King's Legacy with Kind
Words
Michael Simmons
Stew Lives!
Christopher
Reed
Japan's
Dirty Secret: One Million Korean Slaves
Website of the Day
State of Nature
February 1,
2006
Sharon Smith
The
Bluff and Bluster Dems: Alito and the Faux Filibuster
Jason Leopold
Enron and the Bush Administration
Cindy Sheehan
Getting
Busted at the State of the Union: What Really Happened
Joseph Grosso
Oprah
and Elie Wiesel: a Match Made in "Neutrality"
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Coretta Scott King was More Than Just Dr. King's Wife
Steven Higgs
Life After Roe. v. Wade
Robert Robideau
"God Given Rights": Palestine and Native America
R. Siddharth
Tales of Power: When Gandhi Rejected a Faustian Bargain with
Henry Ford
Jim Retherford
Remembering Stew Albert: the Quiet Genius
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
The Legacy of Coretta Scott King
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
True State of the Union
Website of
the Day
Candide's Notebooks
| Weekend
Edition
February 11/12, 2006
After Greenspan
Bringing Democracy
to the Federal Reserve
By RALPH NADER
Federal
Reserve Chairmen have long had a habit of dropping pithy little
phrases into their speeches—most couched in hazy Fed speak
and subject to a multitude of interpretations. But there are times
when the money czars are actually delivering a message.
In
1974, Fed Chairman Arthur Burns traveled to Hawaii to warn the American
Bankers Association about what he dubbed “competition in laxity”,
a poorly disguised complaint about banks switching charters in search
of easy regulation. For financial insiders, Burns’ message
was clear—“the Federal Reserve should be the dominant
regulator.”
Now
there is a new man on the Federal Reserve block—Ben Bernanke—and
he has been using a word—transparency—freely as he moved
into Alan Greenspan’s chair. That’s a word that has
been on the “subversive” list at the Federal Reserve
since 1913. Members of the Federal Reserve who rushed to their dictionaries
for a definition of “transparency” must have felt an
artic chill when the words “readily understandable, obvious,
without guile” popped up.
So
far Chairman Bernanke has limited specifics about his push for “greater
transparency” to the idea of the Fed stating explicitly the
numerical inflation rate it considers to be consistent with the
goal of long-term price stability. Surely the new chairman doesn’t
plan to rest his transparency campaign on this limited point. After
all, European central banks have long released such data.
Let’s
hope that Ben Bernanke really is talking about ‘transparency”
and “open government”—the kind of transparency
that gets the message to all citizens, not just bond traders and
the Wall Street insiders. What the Fed does or doesn’t do
affects the jobs and economic well being of all Americans—the
very future of the nation. In short, let’s “democratize
Federal Reserve transparency.”
The
steps to open government would really be “baby steps”
for the Federal Reserve. After all, most of the Federal government
must live by “open government” laws and rules, and bureaucrats
with a grumble or two – still manage to survive.
As
starters, here is a seven point program that would bring the Federal
Reserve up to speed for 21st century democracy:
1.
Regular open press conferences by the Chairman. Alan Greenspan
and his predecessors never held press conferences.
2.
Adhere to the Budget Act which requires the submission of a formal
annual budget subject to review by OMB and the Congress. (Currently
the Federal Reserve prepares a limited in house budget and gives
it self approval).
3.
Require congressional appropriations for all Federal Reserve activities.
Currently the Federal Reserve finances whatever it pleases with
public funds derived from the buying and selling of government
bonds in the market as part of its control of the money supply.
Surplus funds are returned to the U. S. Treasury annually.
4.
Allow the early release of Minutes of Federal Open Market Committee
meetings with exceptions for national security issues.
5.
Hold open meetings on all issues not involving monetary policy.
6.
Require full audits by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
Currently the Fed refuses to allow GAO to audit anything involving
monetary policy as defined by the Fed itself.
7.
Support legislation to prohibit commercial bank officials from
serving on the boards of the 12 Federal Reserve District Banks.
The
above would be a good start for a transparent and open government.
But Mr. Bernanke should avoid the kind of doubletalk that former
Chairman Alan Greenspan issued to maintain his ideological purity
while satisfying his corporate friends and the Republican White
House.
For
example, Chairman Greenspan often railed against federal deficits,
but he promoted ruinous, large Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that
vastly ballooned the federal deficit. He warned about rising entitlements
like Medicare and Social Security, but did not mention the vast,
annual corporate entitlements – subsidies, handouts, giveaways
and bailouts – that swarm out of Washington, D.C. daily. He
continued his belief that federal regulation of business was backed
by what he called in his earlier adult years as “armed force”,
but he walked away from much of his sworn duty to enforce the consumer
protection laws under the Federal Reserve’s jurisdiction.
Contrary
to the uncritical applause that the media and the business community
accorded Greenspan on his retirement, in these areas he is an easy
act for Mr. Bernanke to follow.
Should
you be so inclined, you can write to Chairman Bernanke and urge
him to adopt these seven policies of openness at the Federal Reserve:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, 20 & C St NW, Washington,
D.C. 20551. Or, you can call the Federal Reserve switchboard at
202.452.3000, or visit www.federalreserve.gov.
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