Congressman Ron Paul grills Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

yeah Thank You mr. chairman I had a question prepared but I think I better follow up on the question you asked Chairman Bernanke dealing with the audit of the Fed because when when the Fed talks about independence what they're really talking about is secrecy not not transparency and it's the secrecy that I don't like and that we have a right to know about what what the GAO cannot audit and and I believe it would be the position of the Chairman is it cannot audit monetary policy and you express yourself on monetary policy that he would not be able to look at agreements and operations with foreign central banks and governments and other banks or transactions made under direction of the FOMC discussions or communications between the board and the Federal Reserve System related to all those items so it really it's it's it's really not an audit with without this it's still secrecy and why this is important is because of what happened four years ago it's estimated that the amount of money that went in and out of the Fed for the bailing out overseas was 15 trillion dollars how did we ever get into this situation where Congress has nothing to say about trillions and trillions of dollars of bailing out certain banks and governments through these currency swaps and the chairman has publicly announced that he's available there's a crisis going on in Europe part of this dollar crisis going on that's been building it's unique to the history of the world on a monetary policy and we stand ready who stands ready the American taxpayer because we're just going to print up the money as long as they take our dollars we'll print the money and we'll bail them all on we're gonna destroy the middle class the middle class is shrinking the banks get richer the middle class gets shrink they shrink they lose their houses they lose their mortgages this system is biased against the middle class in the poor so I would say that this is if if we protect this amount of secrecy it is not good policy and it's not good good economics at all it's very unfair but my question is mr. chairman whose responsibility is it under the Constitution to manage monetary policy what which branch of government has the absolute authority to manage monetary policy the Congress has the authority and it's delegated to the Federal Reserve that's a policy decision that you made yeah but they can't transfer Authority you can't amend the Constitution by just saying we're going to create some secret group of individuals and banks that's amending the Constitution you can't do that and all of a sudden allow this to exist in secrecy and whose responsibility is it for oversight which branch of government has it has the right of oversight Congress has the right of oversight and we certainly fully accept that and are and I and we fully accept the need for transparency and accountability but it is a well-established fact that an independent central bank will provide better outcomes if you want to go at there's no constitutional reason why you couldn't by Congress couldn't just take over monetary policy if you want to do that I guess that's your right to do it but I advise you that it wouldn't be very good from an economic policy point of view yeah but if if it's allowed to be done in secret this is the reason why I want to work within the system what I want to say is Congress ought to get a backbone they ought to say we deserve to know we have a right to know we have an obligation to know because we have an obligation to defend our currency it's the destruction of the currency that destroys the middle class there is a principle in free-market banking this is if you destroy the value of currency through inflation you transfer the wealth from the middle class and it gravitates to the very wealthy the bankers the government the politicians they all love this it is it is the fact that the Federal Reserve is the facilitator but you couldn't have big government if everybody loves big government love the Fed because they can finance the wars and all the welfare you want but it doesn't work and eventually ends up in a crisis and it's a solvency crisis and it can't be sawed by printing a whole lot of money so I think the very first step is transparency and for us to know we have a right to know and you maybe correct in your assumption at least I'm sure you believe this but maybe I should be talking to the Congress that we should stand up and say yes we demand to know trillions and trillions of dollars being printed on a thin air and bailing out their friends they stand ready to do it the crisis is just in it as far as I'm concerned my opinion is it's in the early stages it's far from over we're in deep doldrums and we never change policy we never challenge anything we just keep doing the same thing Congress keeps spending the money welfare expands exponentially Wars never end in deficits don't matter and when it comes to cutting spending Republicans and Democrats to get together and say oh no we can't really cut and if we do cut we just cut proposed in regular stand facilitated all

Channel: CongressmanRonPaul

Views: 56,198

Rating: 4.9554658 out of 5

Keywords: ben bernanke, ron paul, Ron Paul (U.S. Congressperson), audit the fed, federal reserve

Id: 4XmSIuTqZBc

Length: 5min 21sec (321 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 25 2012