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Reuters reports Treasury Secretary Geithner says a Fed audit ‘would be problematic for the country’. When asked “Why has the Federal Reserve bank never been audited?” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner answered:
“You want to keep politics out of monetary policy,” Geithner said, adding the Fed already has strong congressional oversight.
“The Fed is dramatically more transparent than it was, is subject to very comprehensive oversight and audits, but there are certain things about what the Fed does that again you need to make sure you preserve as independent of political influence, that is free of political influence, and that is a line that we don’t want to cross,” Geithner said.
Geithner does not believe the Federal Reserve should undergo a comprehensive audit. “I’m sure that many people concerned about the Fed’s role in the system will understand it would be problematic for the country if you let politicians come in and shape the conduct of monetary policy in the country,” he said. (Video available at the Wall Street Journal.)
How can information about your nation’s financial health be “problematic”… unless, of course, there really are problems that Geithner doesn’t believe Americans should know about. The government doesn’t want to the public to know how broke the nation truly is. Last Friday, by the way, Reuters reported that President Obama was to raise 10-year deficit projection to $9.1 trillion.
Bloomberg reports the Federal Reserve says disclosing emergency loans will hurt banks. “The Federal Reserve argued yesterday that identifying the financial institutions that benefited from its emergency loans would harm the companies and render the central bank’s planned appeal of a court ruling moot.”
“The Fed has refused to name the financial firms it lent to or disclose the amounts or the assets put up as collateral under the emergency programs, saying disclosure might set off a run by depositors and unsettle shareholders.”
That’s right, the banks are more important than the public’s right to know where our borrowed money went.
Four at Four continues with the CIA torture probe, vetting war reporters, and an update from Afghanistan.