Senate Approves One-Time Audit of Federal Reserve Lending

IMO, once is better than not at all... but that's a long time from now to be able to further cook the books...

Reuters

As it sought to stabilize the banking sector and economies worldwide, the Fed pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into markets, expanding its balance sheet to more than $2 trillion. Under a measure approved by a vote of 96 to 0, the investigative arm of Congress would conduct a one-time audit of the central bank's emergency lending since December 2007. In addition, the Fed would be required to publicly disclose by December 1 of this year detailed information about which financial institutions it assisted with its lending.

Interesting that it is right around the November election time, which also corresponds to a dip in the Timewave (for the TWZ enthusiasts).

Interesting times indeed.

~Namaste

This fed audit is GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's watered down to damn near nothing....all thanks to BERNIE SANDERS.

The money that went to foreign banks will not be disclosed, nor will anything done before December 2007 and countless other information.

This is complete BS and the hard work of MANY people to get a full audit of the Federal Reserve has been wasted.

This is nothing to celebrate over. Bernie Sanders sold out the American people...along with everyone else who didn't vote for the Vitters amendment.

I feel horrible for all the hard work people put into it...and we should all feel terrible for ourselves....this is a major win for the big banks and a loss for the American people.

What a joke...it's all a DAMN JOKE.

Obama and the majority of the Senate now votes FOR protecting TBTF Banks.

DEMS and REPS...they are the ones who got the first Bailout going and now they PROTECT THEM.

People should be fricking OUTRAGED.

[edit on 11-5-2010 by David9176]

the investigative arm of Congress would conduct a one-time audit of the central bank's emergency lending since December 2007

:shk: too bad it's only the Emergency Lending and Only those dealings since '07.

Me?
The FED "caved" only to the extent needed to "satiate" the bemoaning masses' outcries. Despite Ron Paul's and others' efforts, I highly doubt they'll ever "allow" a full edit ... the FED, that is.

An audit of the Fed's emergency lending is NOT what we need.

We need an audit of the Fed's operational books going back 100 years.

The truth does not begin after the emergency.... but then I already know what the elites will say... "Let us not focus on the past - we need to be looking towards the future."

The Fed (and ALL her transnational peers) were ALL complicit in a profiteering scheme that conned almost every nation on earth, and this "audit" does everything to limit any review of the facts outside of what happened a couple of years ago.

Pathetic, weak, and a true reflection of the sycophantic posture of the career politician's who strive to protect them and theirs.

The truth is, if we DEMAND to audit the actual activities of the Fed on an international and national level, they will simply demolish the dollar and cause pain and suffering to avoid scrutiny.

If we KNEW the truth somehow - although never explicitly stated - it would be "bad" for them. Interesting balance of priorities, no?

It just occured to me that they may have been working overtime to 'erase' the evidence of their foul play and thefts, just like the phoney birth certificate. And they may have completed their coverup enough to warrent people auditing them now.

Don't quote me on this and someone please correct me if I'm wrong but a couple of days ago I read that they made so many amendments to this bill that it lost all the things the 'Audit the Fed' crowd, including Ron Paul, had been rallying for.

Basically, all this does is sprinkle fairy dust and blow rose petals at the FED now after all the effective knuckle sandwiches have been removed.

Essentially, it was amended to be that whatever they did find wrong in the audit, the FED would not be responsible and not lose any of their power or ability in the future. So in a nutshell is comes down to a 'We found this wrong with your books. Don't do it again, you naughty boys.' *wags finger*

And that's it. Total loss of momentum and a buzz kill if I read the articles on it correctly.

Isn't it sad when our corrupt politicians have to vote to find out where our money is?

We should know where, and have access to our money at all times.

Our system is a lie and scam right in front of our eyes, yet they want us to give 30% of our blood, sweat and tears to it every April 15th? Whats in it for us?

I really think people don't see how serious this really is.

The audit could change the whole monetary system as we know it.

Everything will change, the 3 Trillion bailout package was for the American people. The audit is to see where the funds went and to pay off the debt owed from the borrowing.

When the audit is done, things will change, and it looks to me like for the better.

People are way too gloomy on ATS...

There should be two audits a year, IMHO. One in the beginning of a new year and the end of that year.

It is the best way to keep track of spending.

Follow the money.

The House version still allows for a full scale audit and will be passed through the same way regarding the Health Care bill how the Public Insurance Exchange was approved by The House, defeated by The Senate yet made it's way into the final bill. That is how I'm expecting (God willing!) the Sanders amendments to be over turned.

The "One time" deal gets our foot in the door and keeps it open. The End of The Fed is imminent. Bernake, Geithner are both about to be held accountable. Giethner was Chair of The NY Fed and on his watch this happens.

Remember, "The sky would fall, the DJIA would drop 2,000 pts on day one and another 1,000 plus the next day"? Let's just see what happens with the markets in upcoming days.

It will get to the point of "Either face an audit or be charged with financial terrorism, there is no third option and the previous 2 are non negotiable.

Oh yeah, talk about another bizarre coincidence, Beau Biden has a stroke right when this bill is going before The Senate? Can you say that Biden got leveraged saying "Either you kill this or else your son gets zapped!". What better leverage then to put your kid in the hospital on this crucial of all days.

With Bernake's admission to printing $1.3 Trillion out of thin air. Now if there is nothing equitable or substaintial to put against a loan like that means we cannot be held to pay a debt we in reality and technicality did not and never existed for in the first place, thus effectively erasing nearly $4 Trillion off the debt rolls for just this incident. Trillions more will be erased,

[edit on 12-5-2010 by TheImmaculateD1]

I find this actually pretty funny.

About .005% or less most likely actually understand anything that would be disclosed.

Also, why disclose what we are doing so everyone in the world can know? It is like showing your poker hand. It wouldn't be very smart to just show all current holdings and past transactions as it gives other intelligent people insight to what we have/possess and what we are going to do with it. So it just makes us much less efficient.

Even if, what is it, a big "told ya so!". Everyone knows they are doing the MBS, etc. So what if we find out we have sent money overseas... OK.. anyway nothing can be done about that except even more bitching. It's getting old. They aren't going to disclose the inner workings of Area 51 or anything.

We don't need to audit the Federal Reserve in order to end them. To Audit the Federal Reserve is to grant them far more than they deserve. The Federal Reserve exists by grant of statute, and repealing that legislation is all that is necessary to end this nonsense. While I admire Ron Paul for many reasons, it surely isn't for his wasted efforts in a game of theatrics that only lends an appearance of propriety. The Federal Reserve needs to go! They have caused irreparable damage to economies across the world, and it is an institution of shame and is criminal in every sense of the word. Talk of audit will not even get us near doing what it is that needs to be done. What needs to be done is to clean house, and it begins with the throwing out the rotting fruits and vegetables and maggot infested meats, that would be the Fed.

[edit on 12-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux




While this is true, a true audit would lead the abolishment of the federal reserve.

If you know anything about Ron Paul, you know that this is what he wants. As well as the repeal of the 16th ammendment.

Just wish Tim Turner could get the ball rolling on the RAP!

reply to post by ComeAndGetMe


First of all if Congress is pussyfooting around avoiding a "true audit" it has to be for good reason. Congress created the Fed and they have no damn intentions of ending the Fed. The People don't need an audit of the Fed in order to understand how bad the Fed is for them. As long as the matter of an audit is on the table, when the People have finally decided to that enough is enough and truly start demanding an end to the fed, then Congress will attempt to appease the People with an audit, and this will be hailed as a victory while everything remains business as usual and the Fed remains intact. This is the biggest problem with the audit ploy, and it is just a ploy.

Secondly, the 16th Amendment never placed any new burden of taxation on the people and Congress all ready had the complete and plenary power of income taxation before the passage of the 16th Amendment. That Amendment is merely a response to the Pollock Court. The SCOTUS, in the Pollock decision struck down the income portion of the Revenue Act of 1894 as unconstitutional because it viewed the income tax as a direct tax without any apportionment.

What the 16th Amendment did, and was explained in both the Brushaber and Stanton decisions, was to force the courts to view any non-apportioned tax on income as an indirect tax and not a direct tax. This was the purpose of the 16th Amendment, and repealing that Amendment now won't do a damn thing to change the structure of the so called personal income tax, frankly because the Pollock Court was an anomaly and most courts have shown a tendency to view income taxes as indirect taxes, because this is where income taxes inherently belong.

The purpose of imposing apportionment on direct taxes was to make it harder for Congress to do such a thing, and indeed it has worked, as no capitation tax has ever been passed, the federal government does not make a practice of taxing property, and income is certainly property. As an indirect tax, then what is being taxed is not property but some sort of specific activity named by legislation. Time and time again, the I.R.S. and many courts have declared that the income tax as legislated is a voluntary tax. They will, of course, engage in duplicity, explaining that what they mean by voluntary is they rely on people to truthfully report the amount of income earned, but they have covered their asses quite brilliantly.

The vast majority of people, including virtually all members of Congress, have no idea what the tax code is all about, and the people certainly haven't taken the time to read this legislation that they have foolishly agreed to assess their own liability in. Yet, there are few that could point to which activity they are involved in that would make them liable and therefore subject to this horrid tax. So again, the noble efforts, if they are noble, to repeal an Amendment that never placed any new burden of taxation on the people, is just more theatrics, smoke and mirrors.

I have stated that I admire Ron Paul for many things, but these two acts, that of pushing for an audit of a Federal Reserve that is clearly bad for the people and needs no audit for this to be understood, and the push for repealing an Amendment that wouldn't change a thing about how the tax code is enforced today is nothing more than empty rhetoric coming from a man of whom I expect much more from. I am not attacking Ron Paul, he is a politician and has to do what politicians do. I am attacking a Federal Reserve that has caused great damage at home and abroad, and attacking a tax code that not a soul understands. I am attacking what needs to be attacked, and have no interest in debating the merits of a politician. Any politician, including the great Ron Paul.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Sorry if I implied that you were attacking anything other than the federal reserve, as that was not my intention.

You say no on understands the tax code, while I agree, I would vow to say you have a decent understanding of it. And the history pretaining to it, the income portion at least, certainly more so than I. You say the current bill is smoke and mirrors, yet it seems you would like to see the fed abolished. Would you not say the the Paul Grayson bill is not a stepin the right direction, if not what do you propose? Certainly everyone that knows of the fed knows they are bad, but assumptions of the people are hardly enough to end the fed?

Sorry to assume anything, just trying to get the facts straight. Off to do some reading on your post, thanks for that by the way, very informative.

Edit to add: Sorry went back and read your first post, I'm assuming you are reffering to the Glass Owens bill AKA the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. If so are you familiar with section 30? Say you are able to define that this authority is reserved for congress, how do you propose to pass the repeal, when the current senate will not even audit the fed?

[edit on 5/13/2010 by ComeAndGetMe]

[edit on 5/13/2010 by ComeAndGetMe]

[edit on 5/13/2010 by ComeAndGetMe]

reply to post by ComeAndGetMe


You have asked some great questions, and I thank you very much for taking the time to look into the matter more. As to any implication you may have made, perhaps it was I who inferred this. I am a huge fan of Ron Paul, and don't wish to seem as I am not. That said, I stop short of idolatry with any person and especially politicians. Ron Paul is a very important man in today's political climate, and his efforts on behalf of all the people, not just his own constituents, is nothing short of remarkable. Even so, I will continue to hold my high expectations of he and all of Congress for as long as I live.

As to any appearance that I may have a decent understanding of the tax code only comes from reading it over and over and over again, attempting to understand it. Certainly, in attempting to understanding it, I have stumbled upon case law regarding it, and have also stumbled upon much misinformation regarding it and the 16th Amendment. Indeed, the 16th Amendment has become the greatest magic act in the history of Congress. It is an artful piece of legislation, and I don't mean to offer that as a compliment to those brilliant magicians who have so cleverly engaged in misdirection that they have convinced that this Amendment actually did place some form of new burden of taxation on the people.

As to the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, or more appropriately the Glass-Owens Bill, I would like to first point out that it was Senator Nelson Aldrich who was the architect of both the Federal Reserve Act and the 16th Amendment, both of which were passed in 1913. Aldrich modeled the Federal Reserve Act after the European Model of that time, or in 1907 after that particular bank panic. The creation of the Federal Reserve was supposed to put an end to bank panics, or runs on banks, but as the Great Depression can attest to, the Federal Reserve did no such thing, and indeed, the Federal Reserved, in a large part, caused that depression.

The conversion of the recession of 1929 into a major catastrophe was wholly the fault of the federal government and the Federal Reserve, only a "quasi-public" agency run by private bankers. Recessions are ordinary business cycles, and history has shown us that the repeated cycles of recession are a normal part of what happens in any market place. It was the bad monetary policy implemented by the Federal Reserve, and Congress that caused this depression. In fact, there is perhaps no other piece of legislation that has acted in a way to cause the exact opposite effect of what it was intended to prevent than the Federal Reserve Act.

The policy of the Federal Reserve at that time led to a decline in the quantity of money, (paper money), almost by a third, and it was this decline that led directly to the destruction of many peoples savings in the banks. The Federal Reserve had the knowledge, power, and authority to prevent this, but did not, and instead turned an ordinary business cycle into a catastrophe. It is not as if there were not members of Congress and other officials who weren't aware of this and doing all they could to urge the Federal Reserve to act properly, there were, but the Federal Reserve acted as it did, and the Great Depression is what followed.

While there are historians and others who will tell a different story, it is Stan Friedman who, after years of study on the situation came to the conclusion I just digested into a few paragraphs, but what is telling are the words of Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve now, at a conference to honor Friedman in 2008:

Today I'd like to honor Milton Friedman by talking about one of his greatest contributions to economics, made in close collaboration with his distinguished coauthor, Anna J. Schwartz. This achievement is nothing less than to provide what has become the leading and most persuasive explanation of the worst economic disaster in American history, the onset of the Great Depression – or, as Friedman and Schwartz dubbed it, the Great Contraction of 1929-33...

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.

Of course, the Federal Reserve has not engaged in any contractions since, but instead has engaged in the opposite, and through the creation of fiat money, have expanded the money system, simply printing money out of thin air. It is this creation of fiat money that has largely caused much of the problems the U.S. faces today. Where the contraction of money between 1929 and 1933 wiped out the savings of many people then, today there is no incentive to save at all when the interest rates are suppressed while the rate of inflation continues to rise. Quite a crafty way to ensure that peoples savings won't be wiped out if left in a bank, just do what is necessary to discourage most people from saving.

If people are not using banks to amass wealth through savings, then why are the vast majority of people using banks at all? It is, of course, to be a part of the credit scam that has placed so many in debt, and in spite of a 13th Amendment that prohibits slavery, too many people have gone into willing slavery by agreeing to debt they can never hope to pay off. The blame, while can be placed with the Federal Reserve, and that institution certainly needs to go, the blame belongs squarely with the American people who have elected to vote themselves free money at the expense of republic, and have used a credit system to collect items, rather than build wealth.

No, I do not believe Grayson is correct when he states this current Bill to audit the Fed is a step in the right direction, I believe it is a band-aid intended to keep a severed limb attached to its body. While most people instinctively understand the Federal Reserve is bad for the American people, they are also addicted to the consumerism and credit system that has led us to where we are.

You ask me what I would do, and in part, I am trying to do it here. We the People can not rely upon the very politicians that have created the monster by which we have enslaved ourselves to, and as you pointed out, if they won't even audit the Fed, what makes anyone think they would abolish them? Of course, the American People through out history have shown great defiance to abuse of power, and while perhaps one of those greatest defiance's was the rejection of the 18th Amendment as valid and enforceable, it is also sort of tragic that the American people will gladly defy a federal government when it comes to drinking alcohol, but won't defy them when it comes to building personal wealth.

Gold is money, and anyone purchasing gold a decade ago, has seen their wealth more than double. The dollar bill is not money any longer, it is fiat money, and worth far less today than it was a decade ago, and a decade ago it was worth far less than it was during the Great Depression. Today, gold is far more expensive than it was a decade ago, and if one can afford to purchase it, I believe it is still a very sound investment, however there are other commodities that can be purchased that hold more wealth than if one were to save paper money not worth a damn.

Further, waiting around for Congress, the POTUS, or even SCOTUS, to act on our behalf is pointless. Defiance of bad policy and legislation is an American tradition and should be embraced at every step by the American people. Many people find themselves doing business with banks simply because of a system set in place that virtually forces them to do business with banks. But what is virtual is not reality, and people can and should refuse to do business with, at the very least, large banking institutions. Even further, there was a time when people looking for work would walk into a business, interview with an owner or manager, make a simple contract and begin working, often getting paid at the end of the day or week in cash. Those days have been long over, but this is the fault of the American people who have allowed such a system to thrive.

Every person has the absolute right to contract, and a contract means all parties involved are in agreement to its terms. Of course, a contract can not be written if it is contrary to law, and here in lies the dilemma for many people. It is the belief that they must agree, as a term of this contract for employment, to also sign further government contracts in order to obtain employment. The tax code, and Social Security laws are used as the reason why people "must" sign these contracts, but "shall" is not "must" and when an employer is instructed by that code to "request" such signatures and provisions, "request" is not "demand", and of course, at no point ever has a private business owner or manager been authorized to make any person liable for a tax, and subject to the income tax laws.

This game of extortion, where business acts on behalf of the federal and state governments to be a tax collector, insisting their employees agree to a liability that they are in all likelihood not liable for, is a big part of the problem. Where the American people defied an Amendment and drank as much as they pleased, they refuse to defy a tax system so abhorrent to the tenets of our Constitutional republic, that it is incomprehensible. Where a bunch of rag tag colonists defied a tax on tea, (income tax at that time and for years to come afterward was nonexistent), today people discuss ways in which we can keep this income tax system in place and make it "more fair", as if a perpetual income tax is fair at all. People have the right to earn income and it is dubious that Congress has the authority to tax a right in perpetuity.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Just to clarify, the 13th ammendment never specificly abolished slavery. As I'm sure you already know. And I'm not so sure the ratified ammendment is very close to the original, in fact quite the opposite. Nor is it actually the *13th* But that's a whole 'nother topic of debate.

So it is your opinion that education is the only way?

The only way is an end to flat (paper) currency?

It is very interesting indeed. I will post a few links when I'm on a real computer for anyone interested in educating themselves on this matter.

reply to post by ComeAndGetMe

So it is your opinion that education is the only way?

Ignorantia juris non excusat.

The only way is an end to flat (paper) currency?

A debased currency is a detriment to us all. Paper currency is fine as long as it is backed by real wealth. Fiat money is a disaster, and has never worked throughout history, and it is failing us miserably now.

I look forward to seeing those links.

link
link

Two sites that I'm currently reading. A lot of info compiled in one place.

Here is a sovereignty manual.

SOVEREIGNTY FORMS AND INSTRUCTIONS MANUAL


Why the Gov't cant lawfully assess human beings with an income tax liability w/o their consent.
[edit on 5/16/2010 by ComeAndGetMe]

[edit on 5/16/2010 by ComeAndGetMe]

[edit on 5/16/2010 by ComeAndGetMe]