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This just came from the Campaign for Liberty:

October 20, 2009

Dear Friend of Liberty,
 
Earlier today, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bob Corker (R-TN) introduced “The Federal Reserve Accountability Act,” an attempt to kill HR 1207/S 604 by passing a bill that prevents a full audit and full transparency from America’s secretive central bank.
 
While language in this bill would permit a limited audit of the Fed’s actions in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and similar high profile bailouts, it would not allow an audit to review the Fed’s inflation of the money supply or its agreements with foreign central banks, among other shortcomings.
 
Additionally, the names of the institutions who received the funds would not be available until one year after each “emergency” program ended, and you know how quickly the federal government likes to end programs.
 
Click here to get the contact information for your senators and urge them not to support this attempt at stopping our historic effort to force the Fed into a full scale audit.
 
You see, you and I have the FED and their internationalist supporters in the Senate running scared.
 
We’ve seen it time and time again in recent months.
 
Now, this is how they will fight back — by having establishment senators who oppose a full audit the Fed, proposing watered down compromises in an attempt to sabotage our real goal.
 
We knew this moment would come.  Now you and I must fight back.
 
Seventy-five percent of the American people, over two thirds of the House of Representatives, and over a quarter of the Senate support Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed legislation.
 
With those historic levels of support, there is no excuse for settling for anthing less than a full Audit the Fed bill.  Anything less is merely an attempt to stop our efforts as we get closer to passage of a real bill.
 
The freedom movement will not back down on requiring transparency and accountability from an institution that has helped to destroy our economy.  This is another test of our strength and will.
 
Let’s finish what we’ve started.  Take action to stop this dangerous attempt to stop the real Audit the Fed bill TODAY!
 
Find contact information for your senators here and read more at CampaignforLiberty.com.
 
Let your senators know you expect them to support the American people’s demand for full transparency, not some watered down measure designed to stop a full audit!

In Liberty,

John Tate

President

From Bloomberg:

Denis M. Hughes, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, has been designated chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s board of directors for the remainder of 2009, bank spokesman Calvin Mitchell said in a statement.

Hughes, 59, has served as acting chairman since May, when Stephen Friedman resigned from the position to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest over his ties to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

And the president of the labor union doesn’t have conflict of interest?

Consider Denis’s recent statements on the AFL CIO Now blog:

“My job is to do whatever I can to make sure working families are considered when decisions are made.”

As the president of a labor union, yes. As the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, no. Leading the way to market recovery is going to involve getting business’s back to profitability, something which is attacked by the concept of organized labor.

Or how the re-appointment of Ben Bailout Bernanke:

“While I have had serious differences with the Federal Reserve over the past few years, I think reappointing Chairman Bernanke is probably the right choice,” said Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, who will lead the Senate hearings.

But the announcement was not all positive, coming alongside news that the White House Budget Office is forecasting a cumulative $9 trillion budget deficit from 2010-2019, some $2 trillion more than its previous estimate in May.

Exactly as Ayn Rand warned in her polemic novel, ‘Atlas Shrugged’- when government is placing the looters in charge to run the treasury of government and industry dry. How long will it take for our hero Galt to rise up?

‘Gangster government’, thy name is The Fed.

Do you feel like we are on the wrong track as a nation? Do you feel that, “gangster government” has taken over in D.C.? Do you feel that Congress is exceeding it’s constitutional mandate and limitations in nearly every bill that comes out of Washington?

Attend a town hall meeting for the Continential Congress 2009 and learn what is being done to restore our republic and reclaim the Constitution.

10:30 am -1:30 pm at the Meridian Public Library

1326 W Cherry Ln. Meridian, ID

View Larger Map

More information can also be found on cc2009.info and cc2009.us

Like the Continential Congress of 1774, this Continential Congress seeks to find a path back to our Constitution, as it currently is. Be prepared, you will find others who demand a full adherance to the Constitution!

From The Idaho Statesman:

Say what? Club for Growth, which spent $1.1 million to get Republican Bill Sali elected to Congress in 2006, now says the man who beat him in 2008 - Democrat Walt Minnick - is a pork-barrel killer.

RePORK card: Minnick is one of 22 members in the 435-member House, and the only Democrat, with a perfect score on 68 votes against earmarks this year. The average Democrat scored 3 percent.

Minnick crows: Some Democrats are steaming at Minnick for having the least partisan voting record in Congress. But Minnick put out a press release on Club for Growth’s study, saying he’d voted against $4 trillion in “government waste” since January.

What about GOP Rep. Mike Simpson? From his spot on Appropriations, Simpson delivers millions to Idaho in specially designated spending. He backed cutting one of the 68 earmarks, scoring below the average Democrat. Simpson was unavailable for comment Friday. Read more about Club For Growth’s Report at IdahoStatesman.com.

From WSJ:

U.S. lawmakers, already under pressure to move controversial health-care legislation and a revamp of the financial system, were saddled Friday with the unpopular task of quickly increasing the maximum amount of money the federal government can borrow.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in a letter he sent to top U.S. lawmakers on Friday, asked Congress to move “as soon as possible” to increase the nation’s statutory debt limit. The Treasury estimates that the $12.1 trillion current limit could be reached as soon as mid-October, Mr. Geithner wrote.

“It is critically important that Congress act before the limit is reached so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations,” Mr. Geithner said in the letter.

… 

The request highlights the difficulty facing the Obama administration and Congress as they take on an ambitious legislative agenda while also seeking to improve the nation’s fiscal position amidst a still-troubled economy. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said last week that the federal government’s budget deficit is on track to reach a record high of $1.8 trillion for fiscal 2009, after reaching $1.3 trillion through the first ten months of the fiscal year.

If Congress agrees to the Treasury’s request, it would mark the second increase in the debt ceiling this year. The economic stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year increased the debt ceiling by $789 billion to $12.1 trillion. As of Aug. 7, the federal debt outstanding totaled roughly $11.7 trillion.

… 

Robert Bixby, executive director of budget watchdog ‘The Concord Coalition’, said the debt ceiling has little practical application in curtailing government spending.

“You can’t not raise it, because if you do, the Treasury in effect would be defaulting on the debt, which would be crazy,” Mr. Bixby said. “It doesn’t really provide a whole lot of restraint.”

$11.7 trillion. $11,700,000,000,000.

$38,480 per person. For your typical family of four that amounts to a debt, largely to the Federal Reserve itself (a story for another day) and China, in the amount of $153,920. And we haven’t even reached the debt limit of $12.1 trillion yet. When this ~$1 trillion is added into the mix it is another $3,289 per person.

I don’t have that kind of money, do you?

The real problem is of course that most people do not understand the Federal Reserve system. Mr. Bixby’s comments show a commonly held belief among Republicans that simply reducing spending alone is enough to reduce or eliminate the national debt. The problem is that debt is money, with the United State’s Treasury being the prime source of increased Federal Reserve production.

If you deposit $100 into Bank A, Bank A is allowed to, depending on the reserve requirement in the moment, lend out $80 of that money. This could be in the form of loans, credit cards, finance, whatever…. they are borrowing your money to create interest for themselves, sometimes paying you a smaller percentage of that interest as a share, or granting privileges in checking. Now the real trick follows down the line when the person who obtains the $80 lent from Bank A goes to deposit that money into Bank B. Bank B is now allowed to loan out $64 of that $80, so on and so forth.

This process of monetary creation is known as Fractional Reserve Banking, and is essential to understanding what is being accomplished by this “stimulus spending”. According to the FRB rules, for every one dollar deposited into a bank, ten more can be created through the various steps of managing the assets and liabilities of banks according to the reserve requirement rules. This, of course, if shortened to a very short period of time, can lead to inflation and price instability while the market attempts to react to the new checkbook money floating around.

So, how is this relevant? Well let’s consider the $819 billion Stimulus package. This money, inevitably, will end up [well, hopefully] in the hands of the contractors and managers of various contracting firms that will be charged with the work. Through the magic of fractional reserve banking this $819 billion will eventually land on the books as assets and liabilities of various banks around the country and represent over $8.19 trillion. Of course, with the Stimulus money being spent in such a short period of time the threat of inflation remains very, very high.

Back to Mr. Bixby. I was being disingenuous earlier, I am sure he knows full well what is going on. Growth is being stimulated through the expansion of the monetary base. And he is absolutely right, should we decline to increase our debt ceiling, the original deposits, in this case the $819 billion used to create the checkbook money, would come due as demand deposits, causing imbalance in the books at every bank down the line, curtailing lending and boosting interest rates as banks try to collect profits to restore the books to good order. The only option, if the market will not tolerate these adjustments, is to somehow find a way to payoff the $8.19 trillion that was created out of those reserves.

So, really, the question we ought to be asking ourselves is how are we going to pay back this $8.19 trillion when it comes due? Simple, we won’t, as we haven’t done along with the other $11.7 trillion. As long as we have the Federal Reserve system we will just keeping expanding our debts and let inflation attempt to keep up. And that, my friends, is what is really going on.

Isn’t progress great?

From Yahoo:

Public opposition to the auto bailouts may translating into consumer buying decisions, with 46% of Americans now saying they are more likely to buy a car from Ford because it did not take government money to stay in business.

… 

At the same time, nearly one-out-of-five Americans (19%) say someone in their family or a friend has chosen not to buy a car from GM or Chrysler because they took bailout money. Fifty-six percent (56%) say family or friends have not steered clear of GM or Chrysler for this reason, but 26% are not sure.

Most Americans (53%) continue to believe that it is at least somewhat likely that the government, now that it has substantial ownership stakes in GM and Chrysler, will pass laws and regulations giving those two automakers an unfair advantage over Ford. Thirty percent (30%) say it’s very likely. This suspicion has lessened slightly since May.

However, one-out-of-three investors (33%) say it is very likely that the government will give an unfair advantage to the bailed-out automakers.

GM’s recent emergence from bankruptcy with government help seems to have done little to change Americans’ minds. Only 17% say they are more likely to buy a GM car now that the company is out of bankruptcy, while 22% say they are less likely to do so. Fifty-nine percent (59%) say the end of GM’s bankruptcy has no impact on their buying decisions.

Just 13% of Americans say someone in their family or one of their friends has bought a car from Ford recently because it did not take a government bailout. For 73%, that’s not the case, and 14% aren’t sure.

…

In June, only 42% of those who currently own a GM car said they were even somewhat likely to buy a GM product for their next car.

Forty-one percent (41%) of Americans expect the quality of GM cars to get worse now that the federal government is the company’s majority owner. Just 19% believe the quality of GM cars will improve.

In an effort to re-secure another six-year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve and ward off efforts to open the books of the Central Bank to Congressional oversight, Mr. Bernanke has spent a great deal of time over the last two month’s meeting with and discussing the role that the Fed has in United States monetary policy.

Tonight Mr. Bernanke has agreed to do a sit-down Town Hall with a hand-selected PBS audience. The crowd, per the Wall Street Journal, was well-crafted:

The room for the taping will have 190 people, 40 of whom will have the opportunity to ask questions. They were selected by The NewsHour, local PBS affiliate KCPT and ConsensusKC, a community organization that helps select diverse audiences for events. A list of participants includes people from local chambers of commerce, unions, Kansas and Missouri universities and numerous nonprofit groups.

Additionally, it is noted:

Discussions to do the forum began in March after the “60 Minutes” program featuring Mr. Bernanke, said Robert Flynn, a spokesman for The NewsHour. Why Kansas City? “We wanted to be somewhere in the middle of the country, away from the coasts and away from Washington,” he said. The only two cities under serious consideration were Kansas City and St. Louis, and The NewsHour wanted to use a Federal Reserve bank given security considerations.

Mr. Bernanke re-affirmed implicitly that the Federal Reserve is in fact a private central bank whose charter is the regulate the Nations monetary supply in monopoly status:

Jim Lehrer, after explaining the mechanics of the event to the audience, opened the taped part of the program by calling on Gwen Bailey, a social worker with the Visiting Nurse Association.

Her question: “Exactly what is the Federal Reserve? I don’t have a clue what they do, how they impact our lives” and how it makes decisions.

Mr. Bernanke got the opportunity to explain not just financial stability, monetary policy and bank supervision, but that the Fed is responsible (through consumer protection) for the structure of disclosures on credit-card statements.

The explanation led Mr. Lehrer to ask for a definition of an “independent” central bank. “There’s a lot of evidence that when politicians make monetary policy, you don’t have a good result,” Mr. Bernanke said. It’ll lead to inflation, he says. “We’re very very sensitive to this issue,” he says.

Asked about the Fed being referred to as the fourth branch of government, Mr. Bernanke says “that’s a tremendous exaggeration.” He says he’s accountable to Congress and is subject to the appointments process by lawmakers. “Our independence has to be won everyday.”

Mr. Bernanke also implicitly confirmed fears from Austrian Economists that the drastic increase in the monetary supply could lead to inflation down the road and that the Stimulus package will do nothing to create “shovel-ready” jobs:

Bob Litan, a well-known economist at the Kauffman Foundation, asks about employment growth falling short with slow GDP growth. Bernanke says “economic forecasting makes weather forecasting look like physics.”

He sees the unemployment rate peaking in 2010, with 1% annualized growth in the second half of this year. Even when the economy begins growing again, he says “it’ll be a while before the job market gets back to where we want it to be.”

Responding to a question about inflation, Mr. Bernanke says inflation will be “quite low” for the next couple of years given slack from “the softness in the global economy.” But he says once the economy is growing again, he says it’ll be “very important” to unwind the money the Fed has put into the system.

The importance of these frank discussions however will be missed due to the allusion of journalistic objectivism.

This audience was not impartial, nor was the setting, a branch office of the Fed, intended to be. The questions that Mr. Bernanke faced were not, “from the man on the street”, but rather from specific interest  groups who have a strong desire to keep the current regulatory system in place. The questions were admittedly pre-screened and security considerations tight to avoid the suggestion of any alternative system to the Federal Reserve.

This tour is an allusion, designed by community organizers to craft a specific result: public backing for expanded regulatory powers for the private, central Federal Reserve bank. Fortunately we have Ron Paul’s HR1207 and the efforts of the Campaign For Liberty to fight off this well designed public-relations campaign.

Will we open the books and examine the evidence that this central bank has created the boom and bust cycle that has largely served as a control mechanism by government since 1913? Will we expand the powers of the Federal Reserve to every institution that presents a “systemic risk” to the financial system, even though the Fed has never been audited? We will pass HR1207, which has the support of 64% of the House, and S604, which has 18% support in the Senate, and Audit The Federal Reserve? 

Audacity it seems, is owned by fiat.