“John Taylor, of the Taylor-Rule, who has not been sheepish with his views towards the Fed openly questioned the Fed’s independence during a speech to the Joint Economic Committee today. During his testimony at the hearing on the ‘Sound Dollar Act of 2012’, Taylor noted: “The discretionary interventions of the Federal Reserve have been ratcheted up in such unprecedented ways in recent years that they raise fundamental questions about the future of monetary policy.” Perhaps more pointedly, especially given Bernanke’s speech today on the Fed’s extreme actions and given the hope for a constant interventionist role for the Fed to keep our economy market afloat “The fact that the Fed can, if it chooses, intervene without limit into any credit market – raises more uncertainty, and of course raises questions about why an independent agency of government should have such power.”
Former St.Louis Fed head William Poole added “The bottom line is that use of the credit resources of the U.S. government should be decided by Congress and not by an appointed body such as the Federal Reserve,”
If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter
“The bottom line is that use of the credit resources of the U.S. government should be decided by Congress and not by an appointed body such as the Federal Reserve.”
Yup, hand over all the power to Congress. They are far more responsible. Let them draft legislation regarding credit resources based on their own stock portfolios. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water lefty.
At least congress is (supposedly) elected. The same’s not true for revolving door bankers (fed or otherwise).
In all honesty I know nothing of how members of the Fed are paid and the level of scrutiny their personal investments are given, so for all I know they could be just as bad, or worse than congress.
But until I see the words “blind trust” in legislation regarding personal investments, all of congress is suspect in regards to fiscal policy.
Of more relevance than my irrational negativity towards the issue of insider trading, can’t it be seen as a positive that Fed members are appointed? Isn’t one of the reasons they are appointed is to avoid having your central bank controlled by people who are trying to get re-elected?
I mean, everyone lies, including those at the Fed, but no one lies like a politician seeking re-election.
The problem with appointment is the explicit (as opposed to implicit, in the case of congress) acknowledgment and empowerment of an oligarchy. That said, Bill Poole was always alright in my book.
I’m with lefty here. It’s not so much WHO has the power, or how they find themselves in office, but rather how MUCH power that one entity has. Delegating the Fed’s power to Congress – on the surface, a balancing of power – sounds like a whole other can of worms. Doing so would go against the original intention of keeping the Fed separate from the people…
IMO the Fed’s authority should be broken down into smaller pieces and not delegated to, essentially, one individual.