Serious question about Auditing the Fed.

[DontBeStupid]

1. Do you think the Federal Reserve needs to be audited and why?
2. Do you think that the Fed and Bernanke are doing a good job with it?
3. Are you not concerned about who will do the auditing?

1. No. For the same reasons Toro has already stated.
2. Yes. There are limits to what they can do, and they are at those limits now.
3. Part of the reason I am against this "audit" is exactly because of who will be doing it. The thought of Cantor, Ryan or Issa getting their grubby little hands in there should terrify all of us.

 

[Avorysuds]

The Fed is already audited.

What those who want to "audit the Fed" really want is to audit the decisions of the FOMC. This is a terrible idea because it will increase political interference in monetary policy. Why in God's name do we want Congress meddling in the Fed's affairs?

Because it's their job? Maybe if people voted for politicians for other reasons than they can talk about abortion or religion then we would have a better more stable economy... If people elected smart politicians based on their understanding of markets and the economy then things would be better.

Instead what we have done is illegally shift something that took intelligence to a privet entity that only exists due to Government and let them run corruption for the last 100 years. The FedR has not accomplished a single goal that was the reasons for creating them. So why shouldn’t we audit them? Were we not allowed to audit what congress did when they had the power?

 

[TakeAStepBack]

That is true, allowing a body as screwed up as congress to second guess their decisions is not a solution to anything. I see no solution that makes them more transparent and less inclined to protect the wealthy from loss at the cost of the rest of us and allows them the freedom to do a job that is probably more important to our national interests than a standing army.

We don't need politicians to take the lead or second guess federal reserve decisions. We need to follow the constitution and realize that gold and silver are money par excellence. No monetary decisions need be made except to bring back an anchor to currency and keep it there. Until people realize that this is the reason most libertarians are against the federal reserve, we'll keep debating whiel they keep printing and laughing.

Answer how we get from here to there without all our gold headed for China by the container load and maybe I will give some credence to your argument that a monetary system based on something every bit as arbitrary and manipulated is the solution to anything.

We don't. Like I said, it has to completely break at this point. I dont give a shit if YOU give credence to the idea that wealth must be created by expending energy instead of "printed" out of thin air. History already proves my case for me. There is nothing arbitrary about precious metals. 6,000 years of economic law says these metals are money for a reason.

 

[occupied]

We don't need politicians to take the lead or second guess federal reserve decisions. We need to follow the constitution and realize that gold and silver are money par excellence. No monetary decisions need be made except to bring back an anchor to currency and keep it there. Until people realize that this is the reason most libertarians are against the federal reserve, we'll keep debating whiel they keep printing and laughing.

Answer how we get from here to there without all our gold headed for China by the container load and maybe I will give some credence to your argument that a monetary system based on something every bit as arbitrary and manipulated is the solution to anything.

We don't. Like I said, it has to completely break at this point. I dont give a shit if YOU give credence to the idea that wealth must be created by expending energy instead of "printed" out of thin air. History already proves my case for me. There is nothing arbitrary about precious metals. 6,000 years of economic law says these metals are money for a reason.

So you are saying that basing our nations wealth on a single practically useless commodity is proof against manipulation? There is not enough minable gold in the earth's crust to monetize daily economic activity without some very un-libertarian actions by the government to make sure that we do not become the poorest country on earth due to our trade deficit.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

It isn't about the amount of gold. The entire world economy can be run off one ounce of gold. It just doesn't need to happen that way. Your argument is false in premise. Gold is also FAR from a useless commodity. It is maluable, nearly indestructable, rare and one of the best electrical conductors known to man.

Your only basis of this fallacious argument is on the grounds of the current amount of monopoly money in rotation and the price points for goods and services based on that nominal amount.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

Oh, and lets not forget it is money par excellence given 6,000 years of economic law.

 

[occupied]

It isn't about the amount of gold. The entire world economy can be run off one ounce of gold. It just doesn't need to happen that way. Your argument is false in premise. Gold is also FAR from a useless commodity. It is maluable, nearly indestructable, rare and one of the best electrical conductors known to man.

Your only basis of this fallacious argument is on the grounds of the current amount of monopoly money in rotation and the price points for goods and services based on that nominal amount.

So we arbitrarily set the value of gold to an amount sufficient to cover our economic activities? How is that any different than what we are doing now? The concept of money is in itself arbitrary and illusory, there is no way to make it as real and solid as you seem to think it should be.

 

[Toro]

To answer the numbered questions

1 no
2 no
3 yes

 

[TakeAStepBack]

False.

You're putting the cart before the horse again. Unsurprisingly.

Do you even know what money is?

 

[Toro]

I'm against the gold standard, as are most economists. However, the central bankers are making the gold standard look better - and more plausible - every day.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

I'll give you a hint. Money is not the same as currency.

 

[occupied]

False.

You're putting the cart before the horse again. Unsurprisingly.

Do you even know what money is?

Of course I do and so do you, you still have not made the case that basing it on gold is any better than basing it on anything else that humans value.

 

[Toro]

It isn't about the amount of gold. The entire world economy can be run off one ounce of gold. It just doesn't need to happen that way. Your argument is false in premise. Gold is also FAR from a useless commodity. It is maluable, nearly indestructable, rare and one of the best electrical conductors known to man.

Your only basis of this fallacious argument is on the grounds of the current amount of monopoly money in rotation and the price points for goods and services based on that nominal amount.

Gold is, for the most part, a useless industrial commodity. Very little of it is used to make stuff. But that's an argument for gold as money, not against. You don't want money that is easily consumable. You want money to be relatively stable.

Gold certainly has utility though. It has utility as long as people like it and believe it is a store of value.

 

[8537]

The Fed is audited - TWICE! - Each year. Once by the GAO and once by a private firm.

 

[Toro]

The Fed is already audited.

What those who want to "audit the Fed" really want is to audit the decisions of the FOMC. This is a terrible idea because it will increase political interference in monetary policy. Why in God's name do we want Congress meddling in the Fed's affairs?

Because it's their job? Maybe if people voted for politicians for other reasons than they can talk about abortion or religion then we would have a better more stable economy... If people elected smart politicians based on their understanding of markets and the economy then things would be better.

Instead what we have done is illegally shift something that took intelligence to a privet entity that only exists due to Government and let them run corruption for the last 100 years. The FedR has not accomplished a single goal that was the reasons for creating them. So why shouldn’t we audit them? Were we not allowed to audit what congress did when they had the power?

It's silly to say that the Fed hasn't accomplished a single thing for which it was created. It was created to be a lender of last resort to the banking system and supply an "elastic currency." It has done both.

And no, politicians shouldn't be running monetary policy. Politicians first and foremost want to be reelected and will do what is necessary in the short run to do so, even if that means hurting the country over the long run. It is an empirical fact that countries with more political interference have higher inflation and higher interest rates than those with more independent central banks.

Unless you can argue that you think Nancy Pelosi running the Fed is a good idea, you cannot argue that we should have more political interference in monetary policy.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

False.

You're putting the cart before the horse again. Unsurprisingly.

Do you even know what money is?

Of course I do and so do you, you still have not made the case that basing it on gold is any better than basing it on anything else that humans value.

Money is a store of value. Ini all of economics, the entire web is based on excpended energy. Whether you grow crops, build houses, procure and manage materials to build said houses and on down the line.

The store of value is the intrinsic store of that energy expended. in the form of an indestructable, widely excepted unit of exchange. The reason why gold makes the best store of value is the same reasons I already spoke on. It is rare, it is indestructable (nearly) and it is extremely difficult to counterfeit. It can not be printed. Actual energy must be expended to procure it.

With paper "money", those who control the supply of the said paper, have the ability to literally steal your store of wealth by devaluing the currency through monetary inflation. Which is a large part of our problem today. Gold can not be printed, it can be clipped when it comes to coinage, or specie. But that practice with todays quick methods of purity assessment, would be a losing battle for governments. Much like it quickly became problematic of the kings who took up the practice centuries ago.

Again, wealth must be created through the expendature of energy.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

The Fed is already audited.

What those who want to "audit the Fed" really want is to audit the decisions of the FOMC. This is a terrible idea because it will increase political interference in monetary policy. Why in God's name do we want Congress meddling in the Fed's affairs?

Because it's their job? Maybe if people voted for politicians for other reasons than they can talk about abortion or religion then we would have a better more stable economy... If people elected smart politicians based on their understanding of markets and the economy then things would be better.

Instead what we have done is illegally shift something that took intelligence to a privet entity that only exists due to Government and let them run corruption for the last 100 years. The FedR has not accomplished a single goal that was the reasons for creating them. So why shouldn’t we audit them? Were we not allowed to audit what congress did when they had the power?

It's silly to say that the Fed hasn't accomplished a single thing for which it was created. It was created to be a lender of last resort to the banking system and supply an "elastic currency." It has done both.

And no, politicians shouldn't be running monetary policy. Politicians first and foremost want to be reelected and will do what is necessary in the short run to do so, even if that means hurting the country over the long run. It is an empirical fact that countries with more political interference have higher inflation and higher interest rates than those with more independent central banks.

Unless you can argue that you think Nancy Pelosi running the Fed is a good idea, you cannot argue that we should have more political interference in monetary policy.

Then the answer is to take away the elasticity of currency altogether. Noone, absolutely no one has this central planning ability. Anyone given control of such an important aspect of properity will always abuse it or do a poor job.

The answer is hard money. Then the only decisions politicans can possibly have over the economic health of a country is through taxation of the populace, instead of control of the money supply.

Even free banking and competing currencies beat the centralized authorities we have today. I'd bet if we allowed free banking, it would not take long for everyone to cozsy up tot he idea of gold as money again.

 

[eflatminor]

I'm not an economist, so I don't understand most of what I have heard about this issue. I am a Libertarian and it has been a part of the LP platform for quite a while. Either to abolish the Fed outright or to regularly audit it. In the cases of issues that I'm a little sketchy on, I default to those whom I believe are in the know.

So my question is actually multiple questions. I am asking not only Libertarians but Conservatives and Liberals as well. Anyone who knows what it's about or thinks they do.

1. Do you think the Federal Reserve needs to be audited and why?
2. Do you think that the Fed and Bernanke are doing a good job with it?
3. Are you not concerned about who will do the auditing?

Thanks in advance.

I believe the Fed should end and now. The reason is that I do not believe in central price controls. No central planners should control the price of anything, including the price of money (interest rates). They cannot determine the rates that would be established in a free market and they, for their own good, force inflation on the people, the most regressive tax of all.

For example, from the founding of the country until the creation of the Fed in 1913, inflation/deflation was market based. As a result, some products increased in price, others decreased but overall, a widget that cost $100 in 1795 cost about $100 in 1908. After the creation of the Fed, the price of all goods and services has skyrocketed. That widget that cost $100 in 1915 now costs what? A HELL of lot more than $100. That's regressive, non-market based inflation that hurts the poor most of all.

Further, the Fed acts as the ATM for Congress and their pet projects, be they welfare or war related. If a politician's proposal is so damn wonderful, he aught to be able to justify how to pay for it now, not put if off on future generations, which the Fed allows. The endless printing of money for their buddies in Congress is another reason to end the Fed.

For those that support the Fed I ask "What other items should have their price centrally controlled by unelected bureaucrats?" Cars? Computers? Milk? What?

 

[occupied]

False.

You're putting the cart before the horse again. Unsurprisingly.

Do you even know what money is?

Of course I do and so do you, you still have not made the case that basing it on gold is any better than basing it on anything else that humans value.

Money is a store of value. Ini all of economics, the entire web is based on excpended energy. Whether you grow crops, build houses, procure and manage materials to build said houses and on down the line.

The store of value is the intrinsic store of that energy expended. in the form of an indestructable, widely excepted unit of exchange. The reason why gold makes the best store of value is the same reasons I already spoke on. It is rare, it is indestructable (nearly) and it is extremely difficult to counterfeit. It can not be printed. Actual energy must be expended to procure it.

With paper "money", those who control the supply of the said paper, have the ability to literally steal your store of wealth by devaluing the currency through monetary inflation. Which is a large part of our problem today. Gold can not be printed, it can be clipped when it comes to coinage, or specie. But that practice with todays quick methods of purity assessment, would be a losing battle for governments. Much like it quickly became problematic of the kings who took up the practice centuries ago.

Again, wealth must be created through the expendature of energy.

Say it's stable when the gold bubble pops, gold is only valuable because people think it's valuable, just like any other commodity, and is just as prone to market swings and manipulation as anything else.

 

[TakeAStepBack]

Gold is not in a bubble, the dollar is.