The Fed Admits To Breaking The Law
Now how long will it be before something is done about it?
April 1 (Bloomberg) — After months of litigation and political scrutiny, the Federal Reserve yesterday ended a policy of secrecy over its Bear Stearns Cos. bailout.
In a 4:30 p.m. announcement in a week of congressional recess and religious holidays, the central bank released details of securities bought to aid Bear Stearns’s takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Bloomberg News sued the Fed for that information.
The problem is this: The Fed is not authorized to BUY anything other than those securities that have the full faith and credit of The United States.
In addition Ben Bernanke has repeatedly claimed that these deals would not cost anyone money. But the current value looks differently:
Assets in Maiden Lane II totaled $34.8 billion, according to the Fed, which set their current market value in its weekly balance sheet at $15.3 billion. That means Maiden Lane II assets are worth 44 cents on the dollar, or 44 percent of their face value, according to the Fed.
Maiden Lane III, which has $56 billion of assets at face value, is worth $22.1 billion, or 39 cents on the dollar, according to the Fed’s weekly balance sheet. A similar calculation for the Bear Stearns portfolio couldn’t be made because of outstanding derivatives trades.
In other words, they have lost more than half of their value.
This was and remains a blatantly unlawful activity.
The Fed has effectively usurped Article 1 Section 7 of The Constituion which reads in part:
All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
The Fed effectively appropriated taxpayer funds without authorization of Congress. At the time these facilities were put in place neither TARP or any other Congressional authorization existed for them to do so, and to date no bill has been put through Congress authorizing the expenditure of taxpayer funds, either through putting them at risk or via outright expense, for this purpose.
Nor does it stop with a “mere” Constitutional violation – The Federal Reserve Act’s Sections 13 and 14 do not permit Fed asset purchases except, once again, for items carrying “full faith and credit” guarantees. Credit-default swaps and trash mortgages most certainly do not meet these qualifications.
I know I’ve harped on this for more than two years, but here we have a raw admission of exactly what was done – and there is simply no way to construe any of it in a light that conforms with either The Constitution or black-letter statutory law.
What’s worse is that Tim Geithner, head of the NY Fed at the time, was very much involved in this – that is, he in effect personally, along with Ben Bernanke, usurped the power of the United States House.
The Fed has spent two years trying to hide this from the public and Congress. It has fought off both Congressional demands for disclosure and multiple FOIA lawsuits, the latter of which has resulted in a series of adverse rulings (and, it appears, was ultimately going to force disclosure anyway.)
These actions are unacceptable but promising “never to do that again” is insufficient. In a Representative Republic where the rule of law is supposed to be paramount – that is, where we do not crown Kings and relegate everyone else to the status of knaves, unlawful actions such as this demand that strong and unmistakable sanction also be applied to all wrongdoers in addition to protection against future abuse.
In this case this means that both Geithner and Bernanke must go – for starters.
Amending The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (as Chris Dodd has proposed to prevent future lending bailouts) is not sufficient in that The Fed did not lend in this case, it purchased, and by buying what we now know were trash loans it violated the black letter of existing law.
There is only one effective remedy for an institution that has proved that it will not abide the law: it must be stripped of all authority that has been in the past and can be in the future abused.
This means that The Fed, if we are to keep it at all, must be relegated to a body that only practices and provides monetary policy – nothing more or less – and that all monetary operations must be performed openly, transparently, and within those constraints.
We cannot have a republic where an unelected body is left free to violate The Constitution with wild abandon and those acts are then allowed to stand.
One final thought: If the individuals responsible for this blatant black-letter violation of the law do not face meaningful sanction for these acts, and neither does The Fed as an institution, can you fine folks over at The Executive, Judiciary and Legislative branches of our government please explain to us ordinary Americans why we should obey any of the laws of this land when you will not enforce the laws that already exist?
April 2, 2010
April 2nd, 2010 at 2:58 pm
P.S. Down with the MISHPUCKA !!!!!!!!
The FED does whatever it wants to do without the consent of our prostitute suck-ups that pose as our representatives. Folks, only a small fraction of the people in this country have the capacity to understand that the FED took over the country in 1913 and put the nail in the coffin in 1933 under the treasonous FDR who signed over our country to the scum-sucking pedophile satanists. LOOK IT UP!!!
Board of Governors:
Ben S. Bernanke(Jew) – Chairman
Donald L. Kohn(Jew) – Vice Chairman
Kevin M. Warsh(Jew)
Elizabeth A. Duke(White European)
Daniel K. Tarullo(White European)
Federal Reserve District Banks:
Eric S. Rosengren(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
William C. Dudley(White European) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Charles I. Plosser(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Sandra Pianalto(White European) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Jeffrey M. Lacker(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Dennis P. Lockhart(White European) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Charles L. Evans(White European) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
James B. Bullard(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Gary H. Stern(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Thomas M. Hoenig(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Richard W. Fisher(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Janet L. Yellen(Jew) – President, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Of the five(5) members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, three(3) are Jews. This is a numerical representation of 60%. Of the twelve(12) Federal Reserve District Bank presidents, eight(8) are Jews. This is a numerical representation of 67%. Jews are approximately 2% of the United States population. This means that Jews are over-represented on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors by a factor of 30 times, or 3,000 percent, and over-represented among the Federal Reserve District Bank presidents by a factor of 33.5 times, or 3,350 percent. This extreme numerical over-representation of Jews among the members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve District Bank presidents cannot be explained away as a coincidence or as the result of mere random chance. You must ask yourself how such an incredibly small and extremely unrepresentative minority ethnic group that only represents 2% of the American population could so completely dominate the U.S. Federal Reserve System.
For the past forty(40) years, every Chairman of the Federal Reserve System has been a Jew, except for a brief period of seventeen(17) months. Here are the Chairmen of the Federal Reserve System since 1970.
Arthur F. Burns(Jew)
term: February 1, 1970 – January 31, 1978
George W. Miller(White European)
term: March 8, 1978 – August 6, 1979
Paul A. Volcker(Jew)
term: August 6, 1979 – August 11, 1987
Alan C. Greenspan(Jew)
term: August 11, 1987 – January 31, 2006
Ben S. Bernanke(Jew)
term: February 1, 2006 – present
Jews are approximately 2% of the United States population. The probability that almost every Chairman of the Federal Reserve System since 1970 would be a Jew is infinitesimally small. This extreme numerical over-representation of Jews among the Chairmen of the Federal Reserve System cannot be explained away as a coincidence or as the result of mere random chance. You must ask yourself how such an incredibly small and extremely unrepresentative minority ethnic group that only represents 2% of the American population could so dominate the chairmanship of the Federal Reserve System.
The hired help in DC not only went out and begged for their jobs they knew that if hired the would be required to swear to support & defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. To do less should require INSTANT DISMISSEL.
“How about someone find out which laws were broken,”…”
I for one will be the one screaming to put them in prison from the capital building if someone that knows what they are doing can provide solid evidence that the constitution is being unlawfully broken by anyone in congress or the white house… etc. How about it y’all? I’m willing to help.