- A panel of experts denounced the Federal Reserve Board
for secrecy and Congress for failing to hold it accountable, but their
views were ignored by the myopic mainstream media.
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- Experts chastised the Federal Reserve Board for operating
in secret, "scandalous" misuse of funds and Congress for abandoning
its watchdog responsibilities for a sweetheart role.
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- But the forum by the Center for the Study of Responsive
Law, held Jan. 8 at the National Press Club in Washington, was ignored
by the mainstream media. The center is one of Ralph Nader's projects.
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- Several speakers denounced the Fed for secret meetings
with transcripts of the minutes shredded and Congress for holding only
sweetheart oversight hearings.
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- "Fed officials may have skirted or violated the
law when they made loans to foreign countries without congressional authorization,"
said Robert Auerbach, a professor at the University of Texas and former
economist with the House Banking Committee.
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- "Fed officials including Chairman [Alan] Greenspan
planned and provided misleading testimony to Congress about the records
of their meetings," Auerbach said. The late Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D-Tex.)
said in 1993 that Fed officials "planned to deceive and mislead Congress."
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- "Greenspan's career has been shielded from close
scrutiny by an adoring cadre of financial journalists and a Congress that
treats [him] more as a deity than a public official," Nader said.
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- "Members of the Senate and House Banking Committees
compete with each other in praising" the Fed and most of their questions
are "softballs," Nader said. "Only a handful . . . led often
by Bernie Sanders (I-Ver.) can be counted on to challenge the Federal Reserve
with anything that resembles a tough question."
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- When Greenspan was reappointed in 1996, "after a
General Accounting Office report found waste and abuse at the Fed, Sen.
Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) wanted the Senate to debate the issue but was rejected
by the leadership.
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- "Greenspan's cheerleaders in the media started at
tacking Harkin for insisting on a full debate of the nomination,"
Nader said. "The Washington Post labeled Harkin an 'obstructionist.'
The New York Times blasted Harkin's remarks as 'thoughtless barbs.' And
Al Hunt of The Wall Street Journal called Harkin's efforts an 'outrage.'
" (All three are Bilderberg-controlled newspapers.)
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- "The Federal Reserve takes in billions of dollars
through the buying and selling of government securities . . . they draw
interest from the Treasury on this growing portfolio of government securities,
"and the Federal Reserve then spends whatever it desires out of these
funds and returns the remainder to the Treasury each year," Nader
said.
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- The Fed "draws up its own budget and finances it
from its own activities," Nader said. "Congress has no approval
or disapproval process for any part of the budget. The budget does not
go to the Office of Management and Budget. It is drafted and administered
solely by the Fed."
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- "We're talking personal scandal here," said
Jeff Faux, president of the Economic Policy Institute. "We're talking
about the scandal of a huge concentration of power beyond the reach of
democratic institutions."
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- Despite the scathing denunciations, the fact that the
Fed is a private-not federal-consortium of bankers was unaddressed.
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