Call me naïve, but I find this the most encouraging news to come out of Washington in recent memory.
WASHINGTON — In a display of populist anger toward the Federal Reserve, a House panel voted on Thursday to let Congress carry out sweeping new oversights of the central bank’s policy decisions and operations.
The House Financial Services Committee approved a measure proposed by Representative Ron Paul of Texas that would allow Congress to order audits of all the Fed’s lending programs as well as of its basic decisions to set monetary policy by raising or lowering interest rates.
If the measure becomes law, it would expose the Federal Reserve to far more political pressure than it has faced for decades. Fed officials have adamantly opposed the measure, saying it would undermine the central bank’s political independence and gravely threaten its credibility as a bulwark against inflation.
The vote on Thursday occurred despite the opposition of Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, who had wanted to shield the Fed’s decisions on monetary policy from political pressures.
Mr. Paul, a libertarian Republican who has called for abolishing the Fed entirely, has introduced a version of his bill in every session of Congress since the early 1980s and never made any progress. But the Fed’s trillion-dollar efforts to bail out major banks and rescue the financial system provoked a popular firestorm that ignited both right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats.
Mr. Paul’s amendment would instruct the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to carry out audits of all the Fed’s operations. Those include an array of emergency lending programs, bailouts of giant financial institutions, dealings with foreign central banks and the central bank’s efforts to drive down interest rates by intervening in bond markets.
Mr. Frank had already agreed that the G.A.O. should be authorized to audit all of the Fed’s rescue programs, but he had wanted to wall off the Fed’s more basic job of setting interest rates to steer the economy.
This morning I attended the Mass Meditation for Peace on Flagstaff Hill in Oakland. If you haven’t participated in an outdoor mass meditation before, I highly recommend it.
The attendees meditated to the chanting song of two Mayan elders. Later, 15 Burmese monks walked around the people meditating, encircling them and saying prayers.
Sarah Bauer, a therapist from the Pittsburgh Center for Complementary Health and Healing, organized the event with the aid of others associated with the Thomas Merton Center, which helps coordinate the efforts of various activists in Pittsburgh.
She said the message came from a Vietnamese Zen master whose philosophy was “peace in oneself, peace in the world.”
Meditation, she said, allows for people to feel silence and peace within themselves, to pray for change they want to see and then “have it emanate out.”
For all my dilettantish enthusiasm for consciousness studies and all things esoteric, my actual meditation chops, never great to begin with, have been pretty rusty lately. The presence of so many others proficient in the art helped me slough some attention-rust this morning, whether or not the consciences of any nation-state puppet heads or central banker puppeteers kicked in as a result. The synergy, alignment, harmonization and oneness the globalists prattle on about, abusing these terms as euphemisms for centralized control, refer to real processes and states (pardon) of being; you just need to turn down the prattle a bit in order to experience them.
Thanks to everyone present this morning for facilitating this.
Now, with regard to the prattle,
But words are still the principal instruments of control. Suggestions are words. Persuasions are words. Orders are words. No control machine so far devised can operate without words, and any control machine which attempts to do so relying entirely on external force or entirely on physical control of the mind will soon encounter the limits of control.
Burroughs, “The Limits of Control” 1978
I showed up at 5:15 at the August Wilson Center for a 5:30 press conference with Michael Froman, courtesy of G20 Voice. Froman was late, so I ended up watching Barakhenaton address his subjects and the world, an activity I can’t recommend to non-fans of gallows humor. As expected, and as I scribbled onto a Three Rivers Community Foundation G-20 Guide, he patted Himself & co. on the collective back, declaring that, “Our coordinated stimulus plans played an indispensable role in averting catastrophe,” and that, “We can’t wait for a crisis to cooperate,” and that, “… we will continue our stimulus efforts until our people are back to work,” as no-frills serfs, and that, “I’ve called for a new era of engagement that yields real results for our people — an era when nations live up to their responsibilities, and act on behalf of our shared security and prosperity,” which apparently includes “a new World Bank Trust Fund” and throwing the IMF $500 billion more with which to wreak its usual usurious havoc. He also announced that we have, like, a Coalition of the Willing Iran-wise, and that, “… with respect to the military, I’ve always said that we do not rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests.” I refrained from giggling throughout the news conference, but admit I nearly lost it when he said, “We went into Afghanistan not because we were interested in entering that country or positioning ourselves regionally, but because al Qaeda yada yada,” then bragged about how, “… the minute I came into office we initiated a review, and even before that review was completed, I ordered 21,000 additional troops into Afghanistan.” Still, not a chuckle from any of the journalists assembled in the August Wilson Center, not even when he said of protesters, “They object to free markets. One of the great things about the United States is, is that you can speak your mind and you can protest; that’s part of our tradition. But I fundamentally disagree with their view that the free market is the source of all ills,” then began his next sentence with the adverb “ironically”. He also reassured those with climate concerns that the fossil fuel subsidy reform maybe kinda hashed out over the past two days will “… help us combat the threat posed by climate change,” and that the G-20 is “… acting to address the threat posed by climate change.” Thanks, guys! Though Obama did use the phrase, “global economic cooperation and governance” once and “new framework” three times, he at least showed restraint in not mentioning “9/11,” “anarchy”, “freedom” and “the planet Krypton”.
At 6pm, Obama’s old college chum, former President and CEO of CitiInsurance,
Senior Council on Foreign Relations Fellow and now Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economic Affairs, Michael Froman dropped by to take bloggers’ questions, all of which were climate-related (and answered with the same vague commitments to do something somehow, at some point, moving forward, but cautiously), save mine, which pertained to central bank and G-20 secrecy. Froman basically responded there was no time for the G-20 to discuss trifles like central banks submitting to audits and “coming clean”, as Obama insisted Iran do about their nuke program, and that the G-20 isn’t secret because, look, I’m here talking to you, Obama just said a bunch of stuff, and a lovely Leaders’ Statement was issued summarizing all the stuff the G-20 discussed in secret. There were many cameras in the room, and I was assured the press conference was being recorded, so I decided to save batteries on my mp3 recorder and not take any notes. Of course, now the only media I can find of this thing are some flickr photos and a blog post about his responses to some of the climate questions. Until video or audio corroboration surfaces, you’ll just have to take my word, or not, that Froman conveyed what I said he conveyed, much as we’re asked to take on faith what was and was not discussed in the sanctum sanctorum of the Convention Center. As above, so below, I suppose.
Awful stuff went down in Oakland yesterday after I hightailed it to Fe Gallery,
but, as of 11:11 Friday, far as I know, no one in this city has been directly killed by either the G-20 or their Starship Troopers. Obviously, that’s not saying much.
Just glad I can say it.
Abide in loving awareness, get your story out there and cuídate.
UPDATE 9-26-01
Jessica Silver dropped by today with the footage and photos she shot and which currently inhabit this and the previous post. If you liberate them, please give her credit.
This evening I had gastronomic and conversational fun in Friendship Park at the G-20 Resistance Project‘s picnic. Media, including KDKA’s Ralph Iannotti (23 seconds into this video, Iannotti calls the picnic’s organizers the “Jew Twenty Resistance Project”; what in Moses’ name Ralph is talking about remains mysterious) and a cove from the Beeb (“Britain’s state-sponsored media outlet” he explained dryly), did their coverage thing, and maybe a dozen cops did theirs, milling around the Gross St. end of the oval.
At around 6:4o I split to hit up the Freedom Conference at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Oakland, an event the local media has rather neglected. Here’s my coverage:
It was pretty rad. The Women’s International Media Group‘s Joan Veon spoke first about the architecture of Control and her journey from naïve business woman to global policy meeting junkie and anti-Control crusader.
Next, Thomas E. Woods, author of New York Times bestseller Meltdown, talked von Mises, mortgage bubbles and so forth. Wish I’d recorded Woods and Veon, but the talks were all videotaped and should hit the net shortly.
All the presentations dealt with the specific policies of plunder which make it the G-20 so execrable. I only wish more people had known about the Conference, as Soldiers and Sailors was rather far from packed.
After the event, I met up with local activists, Tom Woods and Freedom Conference organizer and Chairman of the Libertarian Party of Pittsburgh David Powell at Hemingway’s in Oakland. I talked to Powell about the G-20 and why it sucks, Libertarian positions on property rights and the environment, revolving door regulation, currencies and collapses in Iceland, Argentina and Zimbabwe.
Happy EBRA Day to all persons natural, artificial and otherwise.
- a Special Banking Holiday Message from the Office of Financial Stability and the Bureau of Sabotage
Section 2. Subdivision (b) of section 5 of the Act of October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. L. 411), as amended, is hereby amended to read as follows:
”(b) During time of war or during any other period of national emergency declared by the President, the President may, through any agency that he may designate, or otherwise, investigate, regulate, or prohibit, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, by means of licenses or otherwise, any transactions in foreign exchange, transfers of credit between or payments by banking institutions as defined by the President, and export, hoarding, melting, or earmarking of gold or silver coin or bullion or currency, by any person within the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof; and the President may require any person engaged in any transaction referred to in this subdivision to furnish under oath, complete information relative thereto, including the production of any books of account, contracts, letters or other papers, in connection therewith in the custody or control of such person, either before or after such transaction is completed. Whoever willfully violates any of the provisions of this subdivision or of any license, order, rule or regulation issued thereunder, shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, may be imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both. As used in this subdivision the term ‘person’ means an individual, partnership, association, or corporation.
Sec. 3. Section 11 of the Federal Reserve Act is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:
”(n) Whenever in the judgment of the Secretary of the Treasury such action is necessary to protect the currency system of the United States, the Secretary of the Treasury, in his discretion, may require any or all individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations to pay and deliver to the Treasurer of the United States any or all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by such individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations. Upon receipt of such gold coin, gold bullion or gold certificates, the Secretary of the Treasury shall pay therefor an equivalent amount of any other form of coin or currency coined or issued under the laws of the United States. The Secretary of the Treasury shall pay all costs of the transportation of such gold bullion, gold certificates, coin, or currency, including the cost of insurance, protection, and such other incidental costs as may be reasonably necessary. Any individual, partnership, association, or corporation failing to comply with any requirement of the Secretary of the Treasury made under this subsection shall be subject to a penalty equal to twice the value of the gold or gold certificates in respect of which such failure occurred, and such penalty may be collected by the Secretary of the Treasury by suit or otherwise.”
Sec. 4. In order to provide for the safer and more effective operation of the National Banking System and the Federal Reserve System, to preserve for the people the full benefits of the currency provided for by the Congress through the National Banking System and the Federal Reserve System, and to relieve interstate commerce of the burdens and obstructions resulting from the receipt on an unsound or unsafe basis of deposits subject to withdrawal by check, during such emergency period as the President of the United States by proclamation may prescribe, no member bank of the Federal Reserve System shall transact any banking business except to such extent and subject to such regulations, limitations and restrictions as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approval of the President. Any individual, partnership, corporation, or association, or any director, officer or employee thereof, violating any of the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or, if a natural person, may, in addition to such fine, be imprisoned for a term not exceeding ten years. Each day that any such violation continues shall be deemed a separate offense.
, spoke of the monster that just wouldn’t die: the dreaded Federal Reserve. Here, minus the first few minutes, is Griffin’s keynote speech.