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Here’s what Bernie Sanders just said from the floor of the Senate, announcing that he is changing his amendment:
SANDERS: In other words, Mr. President, we now have 59 senators who, as part of the budget resolution, voted on this issue, 320 members of congress, the house, two u.s. courts that have all told the Fed in no uncertain terms, give us transparency. That’s what we’ve got Mr. President. As I wind down and conclude my remarks, let me just simply say that I thank very much all of the support, all the grass-roots support from progressive and conservative groups and from my fellow senators. The American people have a right to know when trillions of their dollars are being spent and who got it. The American people have a right to know whether there are conflicts of interest. Mr. President, I would ask my colleagues — there’s so many cosponsors, I won’t even mention them all. But I just want to thank all of them. let me just conclude by saying that i am very proud to say that we have been working with Senator Dodd’s office and some other offices and I’m going to ask that my amendment with modified with the changes are at the desk, and i’m proud to say that these modifications have been worked out by Senator — with Senator Dodd and would allow the GAO to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of all of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending activities since December 1, 2007. In addition, the modifications require the fed to put on its web site all of the recipients of over $2 trillion in emergency assistance since December 1, 2007.
Dodd then said: There was a concern about whether or not the independence of the Fed in any way would be compromised and he has guaranteed with his language here that that is no longer an issue whatsoever. And I want to thank him for it.
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About FDL Action
“Tiiiimmmmbeerrrrrrr”
(sound of large tree falling).
This does not look good. The key is not when they audit (2007 on), it’s what they get to audit. It appears they’ve excluded the workings of the Open Markets Committee where the decisions were made.
The incompetence occurred in the Fed’s FOMC, where they missed signals, squashed dissent, and showed they were fools or tools. What the GAO will get, in a not fully public form, is a peek at how badly insolvent the banks were when the Fed accepted their toxic assets and gave them cash instead. So we’ll get an accounting of how much looting occurred by not necessarily learn how the looting occurred or who designed it or covered it up.
And a list of the recipients? The experts — Yves Smith — could already have guessed that. We need to know what the value of the toxic assets were when they were traded for cash printed by the Fed — that would tell us how insolvent the MOTU were back then, and would be still if they weren’t being covered by the Fed’s balance sheet.
And this is just the Senate. They’ll get another chance to expand the coverup in conference with the House.
I bet the reason for the $2Trillion threshold is because there’s a lot of $1Trillion receivers out there. More than the whole stimulus bill.
They aren’t afraid of us, it’s the rest of the world finding out just who phooked them and how bad that has them crapping their pants.
Exactly, this smells to high heaven. The names I think we can already guess. It is the amounts, the loan conditions, and the valuations. And it is how the decisions were made.
Dodd is BSing like mad. This whole idea of the independence of the Fed is a sham and distration. The banks run it, and the Executive has been using it in tandem with the banks to fund what amount to fiscal policies outside of the Congressional budgeting process. The only catch is that taxpayers are on the hook for any losses so incurred.
More complete fucking bullshit super-kabuki.
The Open Market Committee exempted from audit? Great! That’s the one place they should be auditing.
Not to mention two other problems:
a) Obama signing statement preventing GAO from either doing the audit or from releasing its report once the audit is done.
b) Even with an audit, the FED will challenge inquiries into certain areas and withold access to data on the grounds of “preserving independence”. Then the GAO will have to depend on the Obama DOJ to fight those claims in court. Good fucking luck on that one.
FUCK BERNIE. FUCK DODD. FUCK ALL DEMS.
Almost forgot:
FUCK OBAMA.
Well, we KNOW they’re gonna screw us, it’s just a matter of HOW they screw us!
Thanks Mz. Hamsher, Scarecrow and Kelly for the reads and insights!!
Love this town and the way it keeps the light shining on them Elected Offals all, daily, minute by minute, movement by movement.
It’s GOT to make them all nervous trying to figure out how they can cover up stuff, hide it, and try and keep it from the folks at FDL so the general public never sees it.
If only MORE of their staffs would drop leaks to the progs . . . and as things get worse for the masses, perhaps more and more staff WILL leak more . . . . I sure appreciate any leaking they offer the progs now, though.
*G*
Thanks.
Bingo, and FDL part of the exposure process start to finish!
…wasn’t it obvious this was going to be stopped in the Senate?
The residents of the USA need more fiscal pain to motivate them to seek answers.
Who has the language to the amendment with the mods?
On another compromise issue involving Bernie.
How’s that promised vote on a public option coming along? Oh, really? Yeah, thought not!
thank you indeed Scarecrow. extremely helpful to those of us struggling to keep up.
I wanna see this language…and then I wanna see who rips this last-second compromise BS first. They will get some $ from me.
Larue,
I think the leaks will be coming soon,
The phony dems in congress love themselves more than they love Obama, the american people, the earth, etc. so let the back stabbing begin
In the 1930′s they call the current USA economy a Depression, now in 2010 we want to call it the great recession, at the end of the Day you need a FDR type of leader to save you, we currently have a HOOVER follower in the White House named Obama
I don’t like Caveats.
If it’s not a full audit it’s not an audit.
Why do you think this is the case?
Because that is where the dirt is.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
I wasn’t asking about the motivation, but why Scarecrow thought they had excluded this committee. I think David Dayen answered that question:
This certainly isn’t a surprise. A middle-schooler could see that the better tactic was to gut it rather than block it. This was a freight train headed at Obama.
Most of us don’t know enough about the Fed to follow the trail to the next level, speaking for myself at least. Was Bernie had? Or does this watered-down audit really have some teeth?
It will examine the emergency lending that occurred after the economic meltdown in 2008. That isn’t what I had in mind when the idea of “auditing the Fed” gathered support, but it should shed some light on the help given to AIG, et. al., back then.
It’s disappointing, certainly, because these are the people who control our economy. They need to be audited full time.
Sanders had the Grayson-Paul language stripped from the amendment.
From TPM:
Bernie talks a good game, but he NEVER really puts it on the line. Another chickenshit “progressive.”
Is this just a little similar to Sen Saunders staunch opposition to the renomination of Bernanke? I sort of remember him being on the record in total opposition to Bernanke, vowing to keep the renomination from proceeding.
“Bernanke was asleep at the switch.” The man didn’t understand where the economy was going in 2007. Why in the world would a leader place his nomination in for a second term – it doesn’t make sense!
Then all of a sudden there was a celebration, Bernanke was reappointed.