House Berates Obama Fed Appointment Process

By MARK ANDERSON

House Banking Committee Republicans have been quick to point out what they see as “President Obama’s failure to fulfill a requirement of the Dodd-Frank Act and appoint a Vice Chairman for Supervision at the Federal Reserve.”

That’s according to an Oct. 27 press release from the panel, formally named the House Financial Services Committee. That release added that Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen was to testify to the committee on Nov. 4 to address this issue.

But as with so many issues on Capitol Hill, this matter is marred by misconceptions.

The Dodd-Frank Act was signed into law by President Obama five years ago to further regulate the banks after the massive 2007-2008 bailout saw taxpayers save the butts of the big banks from their own blunders and treachery.

Dodd-Frank therefore “greatly expanded the Federal Reserve’s regulation and supervision authority,” the committee’s news bulletin admitted. 

Because of these added powers, Dodd-Frank created the new position of Vice Chairman for Supervision at the Federal Reserve, to be filled by someone appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. So, committee Republicans are rapping Obama for failing to fill that post.

But market observers note that it is unlikely that the Senate would confirm a nominee for vice chairman, as it has not acted to confirm two of Obama’s nominees for the board of governors, Greg Robb reported at MarketWatch Nov. 3. Sen. Richard Shelby, (R-Ala.) chair of the Senate Banking Committee, has said he won’t move on the two existing nominees at the Fed until the White House nominates a vice chair for supervision.

House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) specified that Yellen was invited to address the panel about the Fed’s actions and plans for both banking regulation and “supervision.”

But keep in mind that the Federal Reserve is not a government agency; rather, it’s a private central bank that in 1913 was granted a monopoly by our government to create and issue the nation’s money and set interest rates.

At the time, Congressman Charles Lindbergh Sr. (R-Minn.), father of the famed aviator, called the newly-minted Federal Reserve, “the most gigantic trust on earth.”

The word “trust” at that time was emblematic of the various robber barons and their Wall Street financial trusts that moved to monopolize the very creation of money, along with crude oil and other things. The Rockefeller interests also created one-size-fits-all educational and medical systems. For example, homeopathic and naturopathic medical schools closed as Rockefeller grants and “supervision” were funneled only into teaching the drug- and surgery-addicted “medical” system we have today, often called allopathy.

Getting back to the present, it was beyond ironic when Hensarling stated: “Dodd-Frank’s massive expansion of the Federal Reserve’s authority has made the Fed America’s most powerful regulatory agency as well as our nation’s central bank.”

Apparently with a straight face, he continued: “President Obama’s inability or unwillingness to fulfill this requirement of Dodd-Frank and appoint a Vice Chair for Supervision deprives Congress of an important opportunity to conduct effective oversight and hold the Fed accountable (emphasis added).

Hensarling’s committee used to consist of congressmen with more guts, such as the late Wright Patman of Texas. Indeed, Room 2128 in the Rayburn House Office Building, where the Financial Services Committee meets, is named the Wright Patman Room. Patman, along with US congressmen such as conservative Louis McFadden (R-Pa.) and progressive Jerry Voorhees (D-Calif.), were in full agreement and knew full well that the Federal Reserve itself is a supremely powerful private trust that Americans should not trust one iota.

The Fed bank already creates our money and loans it to us at interest. But the US Treasury could and should create the money interest-free, as the Constitution confers, and issue it through the household sector and through public works, such as rebuilding our crumbling highways. In fact, with the Social Credit system (see www.Socred.org) intensely explored by American Gorham Munson and founded by Scotsman C.H. Douglas, a new economic order far more prosperous and relaxed could be within reach to end the warfare state, if we muster the backbone to depart from the current monetary orthodoxy.

Meanwhile, however, Rep. Hensarling claims that the Federal Reserve can somehow be “held accountable” after Congress gave the private central bank what the Banking Committee admits to be “a massive expansion of authority through Dodd-Frank.”

Americans are left with a central bank which already held the supreme power of private money creation before being expanded into an all-powerful regulator—when in fact abolishing the Federal Reserve would perhaps make the most sense. After all, how can the nation’s biggest trust become the top trust-buster?

Mark Anderson is a veteran journalist who divides his time between Texas and Michigan. Email him at truthhound2@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, December 1, 2015

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