Economists and Labor Leaders Call for Fed to be Audited

[kpete]

Source: Firedoglake

Press Release: Economists and Labor Leaders Call for Fed to be Audited
By: Michael Whitney Thursday November 19, 2009 10:46 am

Below is a press release from Firedoglake about the Watt Amendment, which would gut the Paul-Grayson proposal to audit the Federal Reserve.

Economists and Labor Leaders Call for Fed to be Audited

Urge Rep. Barney Frank and Financial Services Committee to Reject Watt Amendment

Richard Trumka, Andy Stern, Jamie Galbraith, Naomi Klein Say “A vote for the Watt Amendment is a vote for more secret bailouts”

Leading economists, labor leaders. authors and bloggers today released a letter in support of the Paul-Grayson amendment, proposed by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, which calls for a complete audit of the Federal Reserve. The say that such transparency is necessary due to the many questions surrounding the Fed’s recent activities, and the “potential cronyism and favoritism in its distribution of many trillions of dollars.”

“The Watt amendment is a last-minute power play by the banks” says Jane Hamsher, founder and publisher of Firedoglake.com, who organized the effort. “It would actually make the Federal Reserve even more secretive, by erecting further barriers to transparency.”

The letter was signed by SEIU President Andy Stern, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, James K. Galbraith (Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr., Chair at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin), author Naomi Klein, blogger Yves Smith of Naked Capitlaism, William Black (Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri–Kansas City), blogger Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge, Robert Johnson (former Chief Economist of the US Senate Banking Committee), Randall Wray (Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability at the University of Missouri–Kansas City), Thomas Ferguson, Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Boston and Dean Baker, co-founder and co-director of the Center For Economic And Policy Research.

Read more: http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2009/11/19/press-release-economists-and-labor-leaders-call-for-fed-to-be-audited/

[ixion]

1. Good... that SHOULD have been a no brainer

from the start.

[jwirr]

2. Any other private organization with this kind of mess would have

been audited immediately.

[Ignis]

3. Kick

:kick:

[Mari333]

4. knr for an audit of the Fed!

[biermeister]

5. www.auditthefed.com nt.

[Sal316]

6. The Fed is already audited.

In fact, it's audited yearly.

In 1978 Congress passed the Federal Banking Agency Audit Act (31 USCA §714). It placed the Federal Reserve System back under the auditing authority of the GAO. The Act significantly increased the access of the GAO to the Federal Reserve Banks, the Board, and the Federal Open Market Committee (the FOMC). Since then, the GAO has conducted over 100 financial audits and performance audits of the three Federal Reserve bodies.link

There are some areas of operation that are exempt in order to protect them from administrations applying political pressure and to maintain confidentiality.

[brentspeak]

7. If details concerning trillions of dollars funneled their way to banks are kept secret

then, for all practical purposes, the Fed is not being audited.

[mbperrin]

8. Exempt = no audit.

Yes, officers, please feel free to search my house, EXCEPT you can't look in the basement. At all. Nuh-uh.

[defendandprotect]

9. k i c k - We also need to get Bernanke out of there --

[valerief]

10. kick nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

11. oh, no... Audit a private company? Where's the freedom there?