I can’t believe nobody has actually bothered to ask this yet. My thinking is this.
Auditing the Fed and increasing congressional oversight redistributes some of the monopoly privilege of printing money away from a relatively private oligarchy to a relatively public (democratic) senate. Auditing is not the same as abolishing and will simply lead to a greater politicization the money supply. It will actually decrease the independence of the Fed. I don’t know why libertarians think that’s a good thing. Didn’t Hoppe write a whole book on why this sort of thing is bad?
Unless I’m missing something, the whole bill was counter-productive and anti-libertarian from the start. Your thoughts?
The idea of the audit is to expose secret activites not transfer monetary policy to congress.
Essentially this is the argument Bernanke has put forth. I think an audit is a logical step in abolishing the FED without exposing it’s activities I don’t see how you would ever get enough support to abolish it.
The answer is yes. Who actually believes that the government will run a serious investigation on itself, on the very institution which funds its fraudulent activities? It can only legitimize the FED. It’s like the CBO, everyone cites the CBO as if it’s the epitome of unbiased truth, even though it’s always wrong.
“Who actually believes that the government will run a serious investigation on itself, on the very institution which funds its fraudulent activities?”
Absolutely. You might as well try getting a real world audit of the Pentagon, or the IRS.
Anyone who has any familiarity with government accounting and auditing standards and procedures knows that any auditing of the FRS [or any other branch of the government] carried out according to those standards would be nothing more than blatant scam -although highly entertaining for some with a really sick sense of humor [such as myself [:)]].
And as I always say:" I needs my entertanemunt!"
P.S. and yes , I know for some that the Fed is supposed to be “private” and not an “publicly accountable” government institution unlike the others I mentioned, but it makes no difference to the end result , as far as I can see [i.e massively politicized, 100% guaranteed fraudulent audit results].
I doubt this is your thinking. In fact, none of those statements logically follow. They are all the statements of those opposing the bill.
How? The fed will still decide fed policy, not congress.
How? The fed will still decide fed policy, not congress.
How? The fed will still decide fed policy, not congress.
…
This is like arguing “Since we removed those trees between our houses, I can see my neighbor mow the lawn. That means I can tell him how to mow the lawn.”
Can someone explain how the fed is losing independence? The arguments are making as much sense to me as ones of greed being the ultimate and proximate cause of bubbles bursting and unemployment.
By aiming to expose the “secret activities” of the Fed, you are effectively legitimizing the non secret activities which are themselves fraudulent and unsound. We don’t need an audit to fight a counterfeiter machine doing its job in the broad day light.
I think Ron Paul’s aim is to discredit the Federal Reserve in the eyes of the average American, and more importantly advertise his own anti-Fed policies and his books (which in the long-run is more effective than his current Audit the Fed bill).