Is Rcade making a joke with that headline?
The Federal Reserve, as we know, is now under uncomfortably high public scrutiny and its hitherto secretive actions are being subject to the greatest degree of Congressional and press scrutiny that the institution has experienced in its 96-year history.
In the 1970s, the then-Chairman of the Committee of Financial Services, Henry Reuss, sought to challenge the constitutionality of the Federal Open Market Committee's ultimate decision-making power on monetary policy, but he was denied standing. The Supreme Court never ruled on the issue. But now, like so many other things, the Fed's privileged status in our society is again being queried. A healthy dose of skepticism in regard to their actions is well merited.
When a commercial bank makes a loan, they wonder "how will I get repaid". When an investment bank makes a loan, they wonder "how will I sell this asset".
Having left open the gates of the asylum, the President and his main economic advisers profess shock that the sociopaths who run our investment banks daring to gamble in a totally uninhibited manner with the taxpayers' dollars.
The current administration is using our blood to feed vampires instead of giving that blood to people who could genuinely use a transfusion. This causes those vampires, in turn, to prey on the rest of us. By the same token, introducing pay restrictions on the likes of AIG, BofA, or Citi is akin to complaining about the quality of the clothing being worn by the zombies as they rampage and munch away on the living.
Enhance creditworthiness and improved credit conditions will follow; personal balance sheets before bank balance sheets.
Raise everyone's pay and things will get better.
Happy Halloween everybody.
Excerpted from Marshall Auerback @ Counterpunch
