Taking Ron Paul (and others) Seriously

[syrakusos]

It is not just that FRB Chair Ben Bernanke replied, but that Reuters reported it.

... and it is likely to pass the House (though not the Senate).

Bernanke slams Ron Paul's Fed audit bill

WASHINGTON | Wed Jul 18, 2012 1:00pm EDT

(Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday rebutted Republican lawmakers pushing a bill that would give Congress the ability to review monetary policy decisions, saying it could compromise central bank independence.

Bernanke said it would be a "nightmare scenario" if politicians decided to second-guess monetary policy.

http://www.reuters.c...E86H10Z20120718

Back in 2010, I worked the LP booth for the Ann Arbor Art Fair, a four-day street event, taking about a square mile of downtown and campus with a 50-year history. We shared a double-wide booth with "Ron Paul's Audit the Fed." I was surprised at the friendly reception they got. Sure, A^2 has libertarians, but the numbers and the people spoke for a wider consonance. Left and right alike - Occupy and Tea Party - share a distrust of crony capitalism. Even left-anarchist David Graeber in his book on Debt: the First 5,000 Years, makes the cogent point that risk interest is earned by the chance for loss. Here on OL, the Marxist rhetoric of "The Money Masters" video finds a receptive audience.

The FRB will not be audited, of course. Any change will be a paradigm shift, unforeseen, and unforeseeable, perhaps, though predictable in retrospect. Perhaps community currencies, silver rounds, old gold coins, bit coin, and other alternatives each suggests some aspect of some new model. Of course, the FRB will not whither away. Science, reason, material comfort and materialist philosophies offer new alternatives, but the old institutions do not disappear.

Still and all, the wider considerations aside, it is interesting that Reuters reported what Benanke said about Ron Paul's agenda.

[Mikee]

I read this book review by Gretchen Morgenson hoping for a strong criticism of government action during bailout and before. After calling regulators "weak kneed" it's mostly a strong criticism of the Big Banks and a call for people to get really angry:

“Only with this appropriate and justified rage can we sow the seeds for the types of reform that will one day break our system free from the corrupting grasp of the megabanks.”

It always comes back to the "corrupting influences of the banks"... Nothing about the "corrupting grasp" of congress and the bureaucrats.