"Something new is happening around the contours of monetary policy." Stoller, in a tour de force. Read the whole thing, but here is a taste, on the changed institutional context facilitated by blogs:
Institutionally, the environment has changed for the Fed and its traditional allies. Whereas at the beginning of the financial panic in 2007-2008, the Fed was a sole provider of expertise and credibility on finance to the political class, by 2010, the new financial blogosphere destroyed the Fed's mythic stature. It is common for staffers to get more and better information from blogs, and for hearings to be driven by the conversation online, than from the Congressional liaison group at the Fed. Read this remarkable Q&A; between Ben Bernanke and Senator Bunning during Bernanke's confirmation hearing, which was a series of questions inserted into the record, questions largely drawn from bloggers. The public has changed its appetite as well. This YouTube clip of Elizabeth Coleman, the Inspector General of the Fed, was my boss's most successful hearing appearance, and possibly the most consequential hearing put on YouTube, ever. [here]
Making this institution, and the policy areas it controls, political is a radical (and necessary) move. "Of the many castle walls the Fed used to keep the rabble out, secrecy and complexity were critical." The basic progressive vision is that government should serve the needs of all of us - it's time to think hard about what that means.
