Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Nobody Loves the Federal Reserve

Nobody loves the Fed, and why would they? But shite, shucks, I cannot say I fear le Fed so much as I fear, say, the CIA.

Turns out, I'm out of step with our great nation on this one. Or at least, so says Gallup:
In 2003, the slight majority of Americans, 53%, said the Federal Reserve was doing an excellent or good job and 5% called it poor. Today, 30% of Americans praise the job the Fed is doing, while nearly as many, 22%, call it poor. While this ratings downturn coincides with a substantial drop in consumer confidence toward the U.S. economy over the same period, it is unclear how much of the Fed's image decline is due to the general decline in the country's economic climate, as opposed to specific perceptions about the agency's performance in carrying out its monetary responsibilities and possibly its role in the crisis surrounding U.S. financial markets. The Fed's low excellent/good rating may also reflect the higher-than-average percentage of Americans having "no opinion" about this arm of the government, relative to the other agencies rated.
  1. So anyway: which government agency and/or department do y'all disapprove of the most?!?
  2. And more importantly, do you foresee a continued Kucinich-Paul nexus mingling with the usual white supremacists and gunfucks to strike up/consummate/re-debut a truly 21st Century monetarist paranoia?!?

2 comments:

schmidt said...

FDA!

EZ said...

Lex- I think the fed is one of the biggest current problems...
I just finished reading W. Greider's article in the nation on the fed-
Greider During the past year, the Fed has flooded the streets with money--distributing trillions of dollars to banks, financial markets and commercial interests--in an attempt to revive the credit system and get the economy growing again. As a result, the awesome authority of this cloistered institution is visible to many ordinary Americans for the first time. People and politicians are shocked and confused, and also angered, by what they see. They are beginning to ask some hard questions for which Federal Reserve governors do not have satisfactory answers.

Where did the central bank get all the money it is handing out? Basically, the Fed printed it, out of thin air. That is what central banks do. Who told the Fed governors they could do this? Nobody, really--not Congress or the president. The Federal Reserve Board, alone among government agencies, does not submit its budgets to Congress for authorization and appropriation. It raises its own money, sets its own priorities.


So "fear the fed?"....damn straight I do....

IMO, Kucinich should stay as far away from Paul as possible. They are nuts from different family trees, and Paul has associated himself with some fairly unseemly types (e.g. racists and misogynists) while kooky kucini is from "outer space" but basically a harmless whackadoodle.(like me)