President Obama wants to try principal reduction as a way to help home owners and the economy. The problem for Obama is Ed DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which would be responsible for implementing a key part of this policy, doesn’t like principal reduction.  As acting director of FHFA, DeMarco has [...]

Imagine if five of the 12 voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee were selected exclusively by unemployed Americans, instead of the current system of having them chosen by rich bank executives. This could be done. Currently five of the voting members on the FOMC, which sets monetary policy, are presidents of one of [...]

There seems to be a broad acknowledgement that the Federal Reserve has made the terrible decision to randomly change their goals by making their new top priority maintaining a one-percent inflation target, instead of the old understanding, two-percent inflation, or trying to achieve full employment, despite 8.8 percent official unemployment. I will let Paul Krugman [...]

In contrast to the analysis by Goldman Sachs and Moody’s Anlaytics–which both concluded the immediate cuts pushed for by House Republicans would significantly reduce economic growth–Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke claimed they would do little harm. The backing of such an important official should be a real boost to Republican efforts to push for immediate [...]

Rahm Emanuel is working the phones for the Fed to flip enough votes to stop an audit. Now it’s up to us to work the phones just as hard to help pass the amendment to audit the Fed.

Call the Senate at (202) 224-3121, and then click here to report what happened when you called.

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RYAN GRIM: Just this morning the blog Firedoglake organized a letter that’s signed by the AFL-CIO, the SEIU and other economists saying we need to back the Paul/Grayson amednement and a vote for the Watt amendment is a vote for more secresy at the Fed, more secreat bailouts. But you also have unanimous Republican support for this in the committee, so you have this left/right convergence, kind of a grass roots movement, that is trying to challenge the establishment.