Filling in for Chris on this, who has unavoidable conflicts at the moment
The Senate voted to confirm Ben Bernanke for another term as Chairman just now. The final vote on cloture was 77-23. The final vote on passage was 70-30. It was the highest number of Senators ever to vote against a nominee for the Chairmanship.
A number of opponents of Bernanke's nomination, including Boxer, Harkin and Whitehouse, "aye" in favor of cloture and "nay" on the nomination. By my count, a total of six Democrats (Begich, Cantwell, Feingold, Merkley, Sanders, Specter) voted nay on both. Pretty amazing that a number of Senators who opposed his nomination were persuaded to treat his nomination differently in terms of cloture than regular legislation when, in my view, the Fed Chairman's influence is just as wide-reaching as any piece of public legislation.
Here's the full vote count on cloture. Here's a link to Chris' latest whip count yesterday.
Moved from "undecided" to "no": Ensign (R-NV), Grassley (R-IA); Harkin (D-IA)
Moved from "yes" to "no": Whitehouse (D-RI)
Moved from "lean yes" to "undecided: Begich (D-AK)
Negative changes:
Moved from "undecided" to "yes": Brown (D-OH), Cardin (D-MD), Casey (D-PA), Cochran (R-MS), Klobuchar (D-MN), Lautenberg (D-NJ), Leahy (D-NJ), McCaskill (D-MO), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Pryor (D-AR), Rockefeller (D-WV); Tom Udall (D-CO)
Moved from "undecided" to "lean yes": Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
The odds are long, but there is still time to win this. In the extended entry, you will find a complete list of Senators sorted by state, along with their current position on Bernanke and phone numbers for their D.C. office. Check out the extended entry, and make a phone call or two--we need to round up as many no votes as possible!
Ryan Grim is reporting that some Senate Democrats will vote in favor of Bernanke when 60 votes are required, and then against him when 51 votes are required. Because your head hadn't exploded enough over the last week:
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters on Monday afternoon after a meeting with Bernanke that some opponents of the chairman had pledged to support him on the first vote, but not on the second.
"I know that there are some Democrats who have stated publicly that they are not going to vote ultimately for his nomination as chairman of the Fed. Many, not all, but many of these Senate Democrats have said that they won't stop us on procedural votes. So we may have their support on cloture but not on final passage," he said.
HuffPost asked Durbin why they'd make that commitment for Bernanke but not for health care.
"I don't know. That's a good question. They come up with different standards in terms of how they do things," Durbin replied.
The double standard at play here is that some Senators want to make it look like they opposed Bernanke, but don't actually intend to stop Bernanke. By contrast, some of these same Senators will actually use the filibuster to block the public option, and don't want to make it just look like they are opposing the public option.
This is a good example of how some Senate Democrats use process issues, such as the filibuster, to make to appear like they are on your side, even when they are not:
When they don't actually want to stop something the grassroots wants to stop, some will vote against final passage, but vote to invoke cloture. They will claim "hey, I voted for change at the Fed," even though they sided with Bernanke on the most important vote--the one for cloture.
Alternatively, when they want to oppose something progressives want, but don't want to make it appear like they opposed it, they will say "hey, there aren't 60 votes," without saying which votes are unavailable or batting an eyelash about the hypocrisy with the first bullet point.
This is a blow to our campaign to stop Ben Bernanke, but it also contains a ray of hope. If the Democratic leadership is urging people who oppose Bernanke to vote to end the filibuster, then there very well might be over 40 opponents of Bernanke's nomination. That would be enough to stop Bernanke, if these Democrats change their mind and filibuster.
Let's keep finding out where Senators stand: keep whipping Senators on Bernanke today! It's working--a reader told me this morning over email that Mark Begich had moved from "lean yes" to "we'll get back to you."
During his time as chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke failed to identify, prevent and adequately respond to the financial crisis. This week, the Senate will vote on whether to reconfirm Ben Bernanke to a second, four-year term as chair of the Federal Reserve.
The Senate should not confirm Bernanke without:
Demanding a job plan from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is required by law to work to achieve full employment in America. However, even as he gave two trillion dollars to Wall Street, Ben Bernanke says there is nothing he can do for Main Street.
Launching a comprehensive investigation into the Fed's role in the bailout of insurance giant A.I.G. and the big banks. Taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of billions for AIG; big banks got paid off dollar for dollar. How does that make sense?
Requiring an audit of the Fed. Trillions were used to backstop American and foreign financial institutions. What were the terms? Who got helped and who got shafted and why? The Fed can't commit literally trillions with no accountability whatsoever.
Demanding a detailed admission of responsibility from Bernanke showing he understands how he missed the housing bubble, and how he will change his approach to managing the economy.
Probing Bernanke's views on reform. Bernanke has opposed the administration's reform package, including the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, crucial to protecting consumers from credit card and bank abuse.
Is your Senator going to vote this week to re-appoint Ben Bernanke to run the Federal Reserve, without demanding any accountability for actions before and during the financial crisis?
You can find out TODAY by joining the "Bernanke Whip Count!"
Campaign for America's Future is partnering with OpenLeft.com on the "Bernanke Whip Count," finding out who is blindly supporting the Fed Chairman, so we can maximize grassroots pressure for accountability.
In the extended entry, you will find a list of all 100 Senators, and the phone numbers for their Washington, D.C. offices. Call your Senators and find out where they stand on Ben Bernanke. If your Senators have already made their position clear, you can call other Senators, too.
When you get a response from an office, either post a comment or email me at christopher_j_bowers@yahoo.com, and I will update the chart.
Call your Senators now! A complete list of phone numbers can be found in the extended entry.
If Ben Bernanke is not reconfirmed by the Senate this week to another four-year term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, then the stock market will be sent into a tailspin so dire that it is likely our children, and their children, will all work as chimney sweeps in the ensuing century of Dickensian poverty.
If a left-right coalition of 40 Senators blocks his confirmation, then it's hard to see what other candidate would be more to their liking. You'd have gridlock. But Bernanke's term as a member of the Fed's Board of Governors is actually a 14-year term that doesn't expire for a long time. Consequently, the same Open Market Committee that's making decisions right now would just go on making decisions. Bernanke would, however, be unable to perform the formal responsibilities of the Chairman, so that role would devolve to Donald Kohn, the Vice Chair.
The truth is, functionally, that defeating Bernanke might not change that much in terms of Federal Reserve policy. However, it would still have some positive effects, including sending a strong message, opening up the possibility for change at the Federal Reserve and, as I discuss in the extended entry, empowering the left-wing of the Democratic Party in the Senate.
That said, however, what is the alternative? Calculated Risk says we can do better. But can we, really?
It's not that hard to think of people who have the intellectual chops for the job of Fed chair but aren't fully part of the Borg. But it's very hard to think of people with those qualities who have any chance of actually being confirmed, or of carrying the FOMC with them even if named as chairman (which is one reason why this suggestion is crazy). Does it make sense to deny Bernanke reappointment simply in order to appoint someone who would follow the same policies?
I'm new to the obscure world of the Fed, but I don't think things are as hopeless as Paul assumes. "FOMC" is the Federal Open Markets Committee, of which the Fed Chair is just 1 vote. It is made up of the Federal Reserve Board, the President of the NY Fed and four other rotating regional Fed Bank Presidents. I'm guessing that in the Greenspan and Bernanke eras, the FOMC (and Fed Board itself) would back the Chair without fail. What if that changed?
Ben Bernanke's re-nomination to the Federal Reserve may actually be in some trouble. While Jeff Merkley and Bernie Sanders are the only members of the Democratic Senate caucus to date who have come out in opposition, an article today in Roll Call suggests that several more are in opposition, and many others are undecided:
At Wednesday's Democratic caucus meeting, according to Senators, liberals spoke out against confirming Bernanke for a second term. Those liberals tried to make the case that the White House needs to put in place fresh economic advisers to focus on "Main Street" issues like unemployment rather than Wall Street concerns. Moderates were more reserved, Senators said, but have similarly withheld their support for Bernanke.
"I'm looking at both sides of the argument, but I haven't made any decisions," Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Thursday.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) was more direct when asked whether he reached a decision on the nomination: "Not finally, but not leaning favorably."
The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee approved Bernanke's nomination 16-7 last month, a tepid vote for the man first appointed by President George W. Bush and renominated by President Barack Obama for another four-year term. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) was the only Democrat to vote against Bernanke in committee, but Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said during that Dec. 17 vote that, "I'm not certain yet what I'll do on the Senate floor."
This should be a moment for a grand trans-partisan coalition for change. Some Senate liberals, plus most Senate Republicans, are opposed to Bernanke's reconfirmation. What about the Conservadems who claim that the party needs to change after the Massachusetts election? What about the members of the Democratic Senator caucus who voted against the bailout? Bernanke has personally conducted a bailout three times that size. Shouldn't Cantwell, Dorgan, Feingold, Johnson, Landrieu, Bill Nelson, Debbie Stabenow, Jon Tester, and Ron Wyden oppose Bernanke, too? If they did, Bernanke's confirmation would be DOA.
Anyone opposed to the current economic status quo from any political perspective should be opposed to Bernanke's reconfirmation. Voting to confirm him just says that you think the economy did just fine from 2005-2009, and that the government's actions before, during and after the meltdown was just hunky-dory. The Fed is sitting on trillions of dollars that could be used to increase lending and help struggling homeowners right now. It is far more money than Congress could ever pass in a jobs bill in 2010. Bernanke is just giving it all to Wall Street.
If that is cool with you, and you think things are going just fine, then support Bernanke. If you think we need to change our economic policies, then stop him right now.
I've heard a rumor from multiple sources I consider credible that Ben Bernanke is considering withdrawing his name from renomination to another four-year term as chair of the Federal Reserve.
I'm pretty skeptical that Bernanke will actually withdraw. Still, that he is even considering it is enough to make you wonder...
Has Bernanke realized that he did a really bad job chairing the Federal Reserve during a worldwide financial meltdown?
I lean toward a combination of the second and third. Through the trans-partisan holds and audit the Fed movement, Bernanke is not receiving the appropriate deference members of Congress typically show to their betters and masters. So, he petulantly threatened to take his ball and go home, unless Congress promise to be much, much nicer to him.
For your part, don't be nicer to Bernanke--be nicer to the Senator who first put a hold on him. You can still say thank you to Bernie Sanders here.
The adage is "Time moves on." The assumption is all will get better. However, for the little people in the United States, those who work, pay taxes, and still cannot make ends meet, life has been a backward motion. Throughout the history of America, it was believed the people, with the assistance of elected Representatives, and well-chosen regulators would ensure that the United States was solid, strong, and fiscally viable. Currently the public is told. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has saved the country from certain crash. However, for the first time in generations, the population feels as though it is in free fall.
As Chris wrote, tonight Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) shocked Wall Street and the DC establishment by announcing a "hold" on the nomination of Bush's Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke for another 4-year term at the helm of our economy.
This is huge. Wall Street will not be happy, and they'll go after Sanders with everything they've got. Most senators wouldn't even consider going up against them like this.
Senator Bernie Sanders has placed a "hold" on the vote to reconfirm Ben Bernake as chair of the Federal Reserve. Even if they are supportive of this move, many people seem to be asking what a "hold" actually does.
A motion to proceed is required for the full Senate to debate, and eventually vote, on a confirmation or piece of legislation. A "hold" is when one Senator denies unanimous consent on a motion to proceed. Without unanimous consent on a motion to proceed, a cloture vote is required to pass a motion to proceed. The cloture process is difficult, because it requires 60 votes for passage and quite a bit of time to unfold.
Here is a description of the cloture process on motions to proceed which I received from a Senate aide. The specific topic of the discussion was health care, but really it could apply to any bill or confirmation:
Leader Reid moves to proceed to an HR [House of Representatives] bill, which will be the vehicle for the Senate health care bill, and files a cloture motion on the motion to proceed
Two calendar days later, the cloture motion on the motion to proceed ripens (there has to be one intervening calendar day between the day you file cloture and the day you have the vote)
The cloture vote on the motion to proceed occurs one hour after we convene on the third day (If cloture is filed on Wednesday, the cloture vote is Friday. If cloture is filed on Thursday, the cloture vote is on Saturday, etc)
Assuming 60 Senators vote to limit debate on the motion to proceed and end the filibuster, the Senate invokes cloture on the motion to proceed
Thirty hours after cloture is invoked the Senate will proceed to vote on adoption of the motion to proceed itself (This assumes (a) consent will not be granted to yield back any post-cloture time on the motion to proceed and (b) consent will not be granted to adopt the motion to proceed itself---adoption of the motion to proceed itself is routinely agreed to by UC but Rs could force a roll call vote).
Upon adoption of the motion to proceed, the Senate will be on the Health Care bill
A shorter version is that it takes about three days, and 60 votes, to overcome a "hold." Sanders has bought opponents of Bernanke some time.
Ben Bernake's current term as chair of the Federal Reserve ends on January 31st, 2010. As such, the Obama administration and Senate are looking to reconfirm him, even though there is no good reason to do so.
The Federal Reserve Act dictates that one of the founding directives of the Federal Reserve is to "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment." However, with a current U3 unemployment rate of 10.2%, it is obvious to everyone in the country that we do not have maximum employment.
This is outrageous, and flies in the face of the Federal Reserves legal mission. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse put it in some colorful terms:
Before voting to confirm Bernanke, Whitehouse told HuffPost he wants to hear "[t]hat they're willing to take their eyes off an exclusive gaze on the welfare of Wall Street and start giving a red hot damn about the American public."
In response to the calls for the Fed to do something about unemployment, Bush-appointed Bernnake has simply thrown his hands up into the air, and claimed that there is nothing he can do. That is simply not true, even if Bernanke thinks that it is.
Even as the country sinks deeper into unemployment, and even Congress prepares a jobs bill that will cost less than one-tenth of the money Bernanke has loaned to Wall Street (loans which he not disclosed the details of), the Senate still appears ready to reconfirm Bernanke as chair of the Federal Reserve. Because he has done such an awesome job of promoting maximum employment, I guess.
Even though some news outlets are reporting that Bernanke has the votes, many of those votes are soft and can potentially be changed if a groundswell of opposition to Bernanke takes root. On that front, the PCCC and the Campaign for America's Future have launched activist efforts to start whipping up opposition. In an interesting trans-partisan alliance, libertarian organizations such as The Campaign for Liberty have joined in. An effort is underway to stop Bernanke, and I encourage you to take part in it.
The start of Bernanke's reconfirmation process is tomorrow, with a hearing in the Senate Banking committee. In preparing for the hearing, in the extended entry I provide a whip count of the 23 Senators on the committee, looking at where each stands on reconfirming Bernanke.
After Ben Bernanke allowed an $8 trillion housing bubble to ravage the global economy and nearly destroy the U.S. financial system, President Barack Obama has decided he deserves another term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. (The UpTake has video of Obama's announcement here.) As the Fed Chair, Bernanke has more economic power than any other person on the planet. By heading the committee that sets interest rates, he can control the economy's rate of growth or contraction; as head regulator of the largest banks, Bernanke has more influence over the rules of the economic game than anyone else.
Why is the Bernanke reappointment a mistake? Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive turns to Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent democratic socialist from Vermont. Put simply, Bernanke is completely culpable for allowing an economic crisis to foment.
"Like the rest of the Bush administration, he was asleep at the wheel during this period and did nothing to move our financial system onto safer grounds," Sanders said.
Corporate media generally neglects to mention Bernanke's role at the Fed prior to 2008, and instead credits him with stopping a second Great Depression. It's true that the Fed has done everything possible to keep Wall Street from imploding, but Bernanke also repeatedly insisted that the subprime mortgage crisis would be "contained" as late as 2007 and made no plans for a situation that might prove worse than his rosy forecasts.
As William Greider explains for The Nation, it's a bit too soon to celebrate our economic salvation at Bernanke's hands. Small banks are failing at an alarming rate, job losses remain heavy and households are being squeezed by plummeting property values and growing credit card debt.
Greider emphasizes that Bernanke repeatedly bailed out financial giants without demanding anything in return, which bodes poorly for any future economic crisis. Kenneth Lewis remains Bank of America's CEO, even though the company has needed $45 billion in taxpayer funds to date, and high-level Fed officials think Lewis may be guilty of securities fraud. On the one bailout where the Fed did assume ownership of the company and discharge it's top-level management, AIG, the deal was structured to funnel no-strings-attached money to other Wall Street companies. Goldman Sachs raked in $12.9 billion from the arrangement. It's one thing to funnel money to financial firms in the name of economic necessity. It's quite another to allow executives at those companies to be paid like princes and subsidize their shareholders.
As economist James K. Galbraith discusses in a piece for The Washington Monthly, it's not clear if Bernanke and Co. actually saved the economy. Even if the financial system gets back to normal functioning, that stability has been purchased with massive taxpayer support. In order to do just about anything involving finance in the United States, a company now needs a very explicit government seal of approval to convince investors that they're safe to do business with. Just ask Colonial Bank, which failed earlier this summer after being denied bailout funds under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
But there has been secret support as well. Bernanke's Fed committed over $2 trillion in emergency loans to keep the financial system from collapsing during the crisis, and has refused to tell the public who got the money, and on what terms. We don't know who we saved, or at what the consequences of this massive bank support operation will be. Bernanke always believed that rescuing Wall Street would prevent major damage to the broader economy, but Galbraith questions whether the economy would be stronger if policymakers had focused more on direct aid to workers and homeowners, including an earlier, more robust economic stimulus package.
"Perhaps the right thing would have been less focus on saving banks, and much more on saving jobs, families, and homes."
Writing for In These Times, Roger Bybee profiles a new group called Americans for Financial Reform, which is pushing for changes on Wall Street and fighting against business-as-usual at the Fed. The bank lobby is probably the most powerful interest group on Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a strong and consistent voice urging lawmakers to protect the entire economy, rather than the banks. The very structure of the Fed makes it more responsive to Wall Street interests than those of the general public. Private-sector banks like Citigroup and Bank of America are shareholders in each of the Fed's regional branches, while private-sector bank executives sit on the board of directors at each branch. Since the boards get to name the regional presidents, private-sector bank CEOs are given major power to name their own regulators. Regional presidents also rotate through positions on the Fed's monetary policy board, making decisions to set interest rates.
The Fed's institutional structure, and its reliance on mainstream economists overly acquiescent to the financial sector has helped fuel the boom-and-bust bubble economy, as the Real News explains in this video piece:
In addition to the turmoil surrounding the Bernanke appointment, the recent budget deficit projections have been receiving a lot of attention lately. By throwing around a lot of big numbers that end in "trillion," deficit hawks have created the impression of crisis where none exists. The government will have a $1.6 trillion shortfall this year, equal to about 11% of the U.S. economy. That's the highest such number since the U.S. economy started to soar in the years after World War II, high enough to mobilize CNBC pundits to warn of financial apocalypse and a bankrupt U.S. government.
But as Robert Reich notes for Salon, it's not really worth getting too worked up over the current deficit projections. In a recession, countries want to run a deficit: the government needs to fill hole created by the drop-off in private-sector economic activity. If the U.S. doesn't run a big deficit, it will shed millions of additional jobs. And the country is nowhere near losing control of its currency. The federal debt stands at about 54% of our economic output right now, and is projected to reach 68% by 2019. But Reich notes that in 1945, the number was far higher: 120%. This number shrank dramatically over the next few years, not because of draconian cuts to government programs, but because the economy grew so much that the debt burden became less severe. We are nowhere near a crisis with the budget that compares to the current unemployment crisis, so pulling back spending right now doesn't make much sense.
Bernanke has always argued that the Fed chair's only duty is to control inflation. But managing the economy means not only attending to inflation, but making sure the true engine of economic growth-financially secure households-isn't sacrificed to the short-term interests of a few Wall Street elites. Bernanke failed to block that economic predation early in his tenure as Fed Chairman. If Bernanke is going to be with us for another four years, President Obama needs to find other ways to restore our economic balance.
I was not surprised or upset that Ben Bernanke was re-nominated to be Chair of the Federal Reserve. I mean, he's not the populist hell-raiser I would have appointed. I might have picked Andy Stern or Joe Stiglitz or Simon Johnson, had it been up to me. But President Obama is not a raging populist like I am, and he was always going to pick within a very narrow board of people like Bernanke or Larry Summers.
What I do believe about the choice is this: whoever runs the Fed, we need to open it up, air it out, and have it more democratically governed. A hyper-secret institution in great part actually governed by the big banks it is supposed to be regulating, with such vast powers it is called with great justification a fourth branch of government- this is just not a good idea. Even if one of my populist economist friends were in charge, no matter who was in charge, I would feel exactly the same way. There is simply no justification in a democratic society for an institution with the massive power of the Federal Reserve, the ability to print money at will and give it to whoever it wants to plus all the other power the Fed has, to keep the secrets it does and to be run by the very companies it regulates.
What progressives should be focused on now, especially with the push to give even more power to the Fed, is accountability, transparency, and democracy within that institution. Congress should have the right to audit the fed, we should know who they are giving their loans to, and we should be appointing consumer, labor, and public interest representations to the governing boards of the Federal Reserve and all the regional Feds as well.
Give me all that, and I won't make a single complaint about re-appointing Ben Bernanke. See how reasonable I can be?
he Federal Reserve must for the first time identify the companies in its emergency lending programs after losing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Manhattan Chief U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled against the central bank yesterday, rejecting the argument that loan records aren't covered by the law because their disclosure would harm borrowers' competitive positions.
The Fed has refused to name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under 11 programs, most put in place during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression, saying that doing so might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders. Bloomberg LP, the New York-based company majority-owned by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, sued on Nov. 7 on behalf of its Bloomberg News unit.
"The Federal Reserve has to be accountable for the decisions that it makes," said U.S. Representative Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, after Preska's ruling. "It's one thing to say that the Federal Reserve is an independent institution. It's another thing to say that it can keep us all in the dark."
Good--we need to at least know what companies we are giving $1.5 trillion. The lack of transparency and democracy in all of this is awful, though not particularly surprising.
Also, nice quote from Grayson--a Better Democrat we can really be proud of. It is also worth noting that Ron Paul's bill to audit the Fed now has 282 co-sponsors. With support like that, the only reason I can imagine it hasn't passed the House is because it is opposed by the leadership.
According to a former Fed and Treasury official interviewed by Financial Times, on Wall Street 'everyone picks the pocket' of the central bank by finding out ahead of time what securities they plan to buy and inflating the prices they're sold at.
In the interests of transparency, [the Fed] often announces its intention to buy particular securities in advance. A former Fed official said this strategy enables banks to sell these securities to the Fed at an inflated price.
The resulting profits represent a relatively hidden form of support for banks, and Wall Street has geared up to take advantage. Barclays, for example, e-mails clients with news on the Fed's balance sheet, detailing the share of the market in particular securities held by the Fed.
A former official of the US Treasury and the Fed said the situation had reached the point that "everyone games them. Their transparency hurts them. Everyone picks their pocket."
There is a solution to all the complaining by Congress over the Obama administration's plan to give more power to the Federal Reserve. It is a solution that solves the worries people have about giving a secretive, undemocratic institution that blew it in the run-up to this financial crisis more power. It is a solution that looks at least in part to have broad bipartisan support, if one bill with 238 co-sponsors in the House is any indication. It is a solution that Democrats ought to be excited about if they take all their historic statements about government transparency and more democracy seriously.
The only downside is that it would be picking a big policy fight that directly challenges the power of the too-big-to-fail banks.
The idea is simple, has been around for a long time, should have been done a long time ago: make the Fed a more open and democratic institution, rather than the secretive one tied so closely to the big banks it is supposed to be regulating. There are a variety of ideas in this area, some of my favorites being:
The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which now has 238 co-sponsors (weirdly a lot more Republicans than Democrats, but with 47 Democrats led by Alan Grayson). This bill gives GAO the authority to audit the Fed and report is findings to Congress.
Requiring the Fed to disclose which banks are receiving trillions of dollars to prop them up.
Taking bankers off the governing board of the regional Feds, and making sure that only consumer, labor, and public interest representatives are on the governing boards (currently, banking industry representatives or those affiliated with the banking industry are allowed to have three out of nine seats board seats for each of the 12 Regional Feds). Having those kinds of reps placed inside the Federal Reserve is important as well.
Making the Fed more transparent, and changing the governing structure so that more people than bankers are involved with it, would make it acceptable to progressives to give the Fed more power. Without that kind of restructuring, the issue will not go away, and will likely doom regulatory reform.
Opening up the Fed should be one of the major things progressives demand before they support giving them any more power.
The folks over at FDL have an action page on this, and you can add your support here.
Some of the largest U.S. banks may be on the ropes these days, but the disparity between the plight of financial executives and ordinary Americans has never been starker. Over the past two decades, the banking system has grown accustomed to scoring massive profits by preying on its own customers, making 2009's transition to pilfering taxpayer wallets an easy one. After burying the economy under a mountain of unaffordable debt, bank CEOs are now finding ways to subsidize their own paychecks with taxpayer bailout funds.
by Zach Carter, Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
Progressive media is sounding the alarm on the AIG bonus scandal, demanding that policymakers stop repeating Bush administration mistakes and offering concrete solutions to the dire economic situation those missteps have created.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich describes the bonus insanity in a blog distributed by AlterNet. "Had AIG gone into chapter 11 bankruptcy or been liquidated, as it would have without government aid, no bonuses would ever be paid," Reich writes, noting that institutions like AIG "are no longer within the capitalist system because they are no longer accountable to the market." If AIG is not accountable to the Treasury Secretary of the country that owns an 80% stake in AIG, then the company has unlimited access to taxpayer coffers without being accountable to anyone at all.
I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the politics of the current bailout and transition. The government is now going to lay out $7.2 trillion in lending to the financial system, which Congress ratified with the bailout vote. And that TARP program is rumored to be enlarged to $1.2 trillion from its current $700 billion amount. Citigroup is being bailed out with a remarkably awful deal for taxpayers, where the government takes a small percentage of the company in return for hundreds of billions of dollars. Robert Rubin, who should be living in disgrace, is going to be an important force in the White House, Larry Summers, who helped cause a lot of the policy problems, will run the Fed in 2010, and Tim Geithner, a Rubin disciple, is going to be the Treasury Secretary.
All of this is in the name of 'stability.' Of course, the automakers are on the brink of devastation, Blanche Lincoln is 'undecided' on the Employee Free Choice Act (so much for that 60 votes in the Senate threshold), and that promise to revise Bankruptcy Laws is far in the distance. This would be mindblowing if I hadn't watched the runup to the war in Iraq, the impeachment of Clinton, and the elite self-protection games that have gone on for years. I never expected Obama to be a progressive (since he kept saying he didn't believe in ideology and wasn't part of the left), and took a lot of heat here for saying that repeatedly. And he's obviously not. But more than that, I'm just kind of floored by the automatic pilot this political system is on, even after ten years of obviously horrible and embarrassing public policies.
It's just simply awful. The law? Pff, whatever. The WTO? No, the rich people want subsidies, that's cool. Congressional authority? Nah, it's obvious that the executive branch is going to be dominant for the foreseeable future, and that the public has very little input into, well, anything. The Very Serious People are still as powerful as they've ever been; we might have helped shuffle around the Village a little bit, but that is it.
Man I hope there is an Obama movement, distinct from Obama himself and with leaders who can create oppositional and proactive stances. This is really really bad.
