Group items tagged

Sanders/Dodd Audit-The-Fed allows audit of TARP + TALF, but not FOMC, discount window operations, or agreement with foreign central banks. "Even the so called "independent" leftists, Kucinich and Sanders, have both capitulatied to the corporate, class markets and their class despotism, proving they are not real opposition leaders, but phony socialists, phony anti war activists." ~Eric Albert Schwing I read all three versions of the Sanders amendment carefully, and I believe Sanders made a good call if the decision was compromise with Dodd or have no amendment at all. The big differences with the compromise are: -Single audit covering December 1,2007 to May 2010 rather than open-ended audit until all bailout funds are recovered. -Specific parameters on the audit focusing on whether proper procedures were followed and what could be done to improve Fed governance. However it is not clear that the audit is limited to these items. -Fed website still must report lots of previously undisclosed details about the bailout measured-who got what and why. ~bmull

Leahy Pushes Financial Reform Amendment to Protect Whistleblowers, Transparency

Senator John McCain warned his Senate colleagues on Wednesday, "To hold out and say we won't agree to raising the debt limit to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, it's unfair, it's bizarro."

Jamie Dimon is on the board of the NY Fed. He knows what they're up to. No matter what excuse Obama offers for opposing the Sanders amendment, there is no reasonable argument to be made for allowing the Chair of JP Morgan Chase to know what members of Congress cannot.

"Senator Bernard Sanders, independent of Vermont, has agreed to modify a proposal that would require public audits of the Federal Reserve in a potential compromise"

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com

"...when the economy falters deficits are part of the remedy; when the immediate problem is what it is now-a lack of demand, not a shortage of capital-higher spending is generally more efficacious than lower taxes, especially lower taxes on the rich.