Fireworks: CNBC's Bartiromo vs. Barney Frank On Banks

Source
Barney Frank to Bartiromo: "Maria, if you want to have a serious conversation without mocking me ..."

Frank: "I don't take kindly to being called a non-adult. You know, you remind me sometimes of what your colleague Joe Kernan said when I tried to get the conversation more thoughtful -- he said, 'Oh this is cable TV, not C-SPAN.' I want to talk seriously about the issues. You keep changing the subject."
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Naomi Klein And Joseph Stiglitz Discuss The Cause And Effect Of The Financial Crisis

Tyler Durden/ZeroHedge

Alan Greenspan's economic legacy is slowly but surely deteriorating from that of one created by a "Maestro", to the deranged hungover flashbacks of the most inept monetarst dilettante and plutocrat puppet in the history of fiat capitalism. And with ever increasing honest and truthful observations as those shared by Naomi Klein and Joseph Stiglitz in the 1 hour + program attached, courtesy of Fora TV, only the remnants of the quickly evaporating close circle of Bernanke and Co., will have anything favorable left to say for the man who took the mundane task of building bubbles and converted it into rocket science so complex that only a few people at Goldman Sachs figured out how to benefit from it. We encourage all readers to spend some time watching the program before, just like Barney Frank and other bribed politicans, deciding that changing the status quo vis-a-vis the Fed is a step in the "wrong direction."

10 minute excerpt below:

Watch the full program or select from the following clips. We would like to draw your attention to clips 2, 7, 11 and 13

01. Introduction
02. Flawed Economic Model
03. Economic Power and Ideology
04. Collapse of Trust in Legal System
05. Legal Means of Assistance
06. Effects of Bailout
07. How This Crisis Came About
08. New Unregulated Markets
09. Modern Capitalism Separates Ownership and Control
10. Control
11. Government Controlled by Banking Interest
12. Property Information System
13. Protection of Wealthy and Powerful
14. Documentation of Who Owns What
15. New Orleans Troubles
16. Foreclosures are Economic Katrinas

Audit the FED is DEAD

Bob Ivry
Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican who has called for an end to the Federal Reserve, said legislation he introduced to audit monetary policy has been “gutted” while moving toward a possible vote in the Democratic-controlled House.

The bill, with 308 co-sponsors, has been stripped of provisions that would remove Fed exemptions from audits of transactions with foreign central banks, monetary policy deliberations, transactions made under the direction of the Federal Open Market Committee and communications between the Board, the reserve banks and staff, Paul said today.

“There’s nothing left, it’s been gutted,” he said in a telephone interview. “This is not a partisan issue. People all over the country want to know what the Fed is up to, and this legislation was supposed to help them do that.”

The Fed, led by Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, has come under greater congressional scrutiny while attempting to end the financial crisis by bailing out financial firms and more than doubling its balance sheet to $2.16 trillion in the past year. The central bank is also buying $1.25 trillion of securities tied to home loans.

Paul, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said Mel Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, has eliminated “just about everything” while preparing the legislation for formal consideration. Watt is chairman of the panel’s domestic monetary policy and technology subcommittee.

Keith Kelly, a spokesman for Watt, declined to comment and said Watt wasn’t immediately available for an interview. Watt’s district includes Charlotte, headquarters of Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender.

Original Language

Paul said he intends to introduce an amendment to the bill when it comes to the House floor for a vote restoring the legislation’s original language.

Representative Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts and chairman of the committee, said in interview that he intends to ensure legislation would provide a time lag between FOMC actions and the reporting of them.

Such a provision would “lessen the market impact,” he said on Oct. 20. “The importance is to see that there are no abuses and to judge what they did.”

The legislation will probably be included in a broader Democratic package of financial-regulation changes in the House, Frank said.

Wells Fargo Sticks it to Card Holders Who Bailed Them Out

Boston Globe:
Wells Fargo raises credit card rates
Wells Fargo & Co. plans to raise interest rates on a majority of credit card customers by 3 percentage points before new rules limiting such increases take effect, a company executive said. “This is something we’ve been contemplating for quite a period of time,’’ Kevin Rhein, group head of card services, said yesterday.

Wells Fargo began advising customers this week that the change takes effect Nov. 30. That’s one day before the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, wants curbs on rates and fees under a new US credit card law to take effect. He plans a hearing today on moving up the date to Dec. 1, from February, to head off increases by card issuers.

Rhein did not comment on whether Frank’s bill had any bearing on Wells Fargo’s decision. The bank is also eliminating over-limit fees, which are imposed when customers exceed their credit limits, he said.

Wells Fargo, the eighth-biggest US card lender, accepted $25 billion from the federal bank bailout program.

Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest US credit card lender, has said it won’t raise rates and fees on customers in good standing before the effective dates of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, which takes effect in stages.


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Is it any wonder then that Ann Minch staged a DEBTOR'S REVOLT! last month in protest after the interest rate on her credit card was jacked up by 30% even though she made all the payments on time?

Message to Bank of America: I've decided to it's time to take a stand against the banksters' usury and greed! If our founding fathers were willing to sacrifice their LIVES for our FREEDOM, then I can certainly sacrifice my credit score and be willing to be sued. I'm staging a DEBTOR'S REVOLT!
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John Conyers Joins Acorn Investigation

This is what's called "Damage Control".

The Free Press reports House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers is weighing into the controversy involving Acorn:

Conyers and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank of Massachusetts today asked the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service to provide an analysis on several aspects of ACORN, including any current or previous criminal investigations into the group; a breakdown of any funding received by the group and any violations of the terms of that funding; a report on alleged improprieties in collecting voter registration forms and “the extent ... that resulted in people being improperly placed on voting roles and actually attempting to vote,” and the group’s programs to provide housing opportunities.

It also asked for a report on private sting activities “in which individuals have reportedly visited ACORN offices, misrepresented their identities and proposed activities, surreptitiously videotaped resulting conversations with ACORN workers, and widely distributed them.”

The letter went onto say, “Conflicting allegations have been made about the propriety of these activities. Please research and report on the federal and state laws that could apply to such videotaping and distribution of conversations without the consent of all parties.”

75% of Americans Support Auditing the Federal Reserve

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Barney Frank who chairs the Financial Service Committee better think twice about watering down Ron Paul's bill. There's talk he intends to morph it into a broader bill which would weaken or defeat Paul's bill all together.

American Banking News reports,
Congressman Ron Paul informed the Campaign for Liberty that the House Financial Services Committee will hold hearings on Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (H.R. 1207). The hearings are currently tentatively set for Friday, September 25^th at 9:00 AM.

H.R. 1207: the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 would require the Government Account Office to audit the Federal Reserve’s funding facilities, including the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, Term Securities Lending Facility, and Term Asset-Backed Securities Lending Facility. The GAO would then provide a full report of its findings to Congress. Paul believes that the legislation will shine light on the Federal Reserve’s secrecy and demonstrate to the country that the Federal Reserve doesn’t have the country’s best interest in mind.

Currently H.R. 1207 has 284 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and a similar piece of legislation, S.604: the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act has 24 co-sponsors in the senate. A recent opinion poll indicated that 75% of the American People support the idea of auditing the Federal Reserve.

John Tate, president of the Campaign for Liberty, stated in a press release, ”The Federal Reserve wields tremendous power and is at the center of our current economic storm of deficits, debt and bailouts. Congressman Barney Frank should be commended for his willingness to hold hearings on Fed transparency.”

Now that the legislation is gaining steam, some Libertarian activists are worried that the legislation will be attached to a larger financial regulatory reform bill that will provide increased power to the Federal Reserve or other agencies. Tate stated that attaching the bill to other legislation “would be a betrayal to the intent and spirit of H.R. 1207, and would be vigorously opposed by Campaign for Liberty.”

Misinformation Alert: Barney Frank Never Said That HR 1207 Will Pass In October

Missing Sentence in Transcript Causes Premature HR 1207 Victory Celebration

Several blogs and forums reported that Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, said that Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve, HR 1207, will pass in October.

Incorrect Reports about Barney Frank’s Statement on HR 1207

• Washington Times: Barney Frank says Ron Paul bill will pass
• Politico: Barney: Fed audit bill will pass in October
• Business Insider: Barney Frank: Yes, We Will Pass Ron Paul’s “Audit The Fed” Bill
• United Liberty: Frank: Vote on HR 1207 in October
• Daily Paul: Video: Barney Frank Says House Will Pass HR1207 in October
• ZeroHedge: Barney Frank Says The House Will Pass HR 1207 In October
• Mish: Barney Frank Says Ron Paul’s Audit The Fed Bill Will Pass In October – (Update posted)
• Washington Independent: Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ Bill to Get October Vote?

The source of the rumor seems to be the following video.

A sloppy and incomplete transcript, which appears to have originated at the Washington Times which was originally prepared by Mish and then copied by the Washington Times, is making the rounds. The transcript is missing an essential sentence, which is marked in bold:

Barney Frank: “I have been pushing for more openness from the Fed. I want to restrict the powers of the Federal Reserve. First of all, the Fed will be the major losers of power if we are successful, as I believe we will be, setting up a financial product protection commission. The Federal Reserve is now charged with protecting consumers. They were supposed to do subprime mortgage restrictions.

Congress in 1994 gave the Fed powers to ban subprime mortgages. Alan Greenspan refused to do it. They had the power to ban credit card abuses. Under Greenspan they did nothing. Under Bernanke they started but only after Congress acted.That’s one of the reasons why in the new consumer protection agency, we will take away from the Federal reserve the power to go consumer protection.

Secondly, they have has since 1932 a right under Herbert Hoover to intervene in the economy whenever they could. Last September, the Federal Reserve they were going to advance $82 billion to AIG. I was kind of surprised and said, ‘Mr Bernanke do you have $82 billion?’ Mr. Bernanke replied, ‘I have $800 billion and under section 13.3 of the Federal Reserve Act they can lend anything they want.’

We are going to curtail that lending power. We are going to put some restrictions on it.

Finally we will subject them to a complete audit. I have been working with Ron Paul, who is the main sponsor of that bill. He agrees that we don’t want to have the audit appear as if it influences monetary policy as that would be inflationary.

One of the things the audit will show you is what the Federal Reserve buys itself. And that will be made public, but not instantly because if it was made instantly people would be trading off it, so the data would be released after a time period of several months, enough time so it will not be market sensitive. That will be part of the overall federal regulation that we are redacting. This will probably pass in October.”

(Accurate transcript here.)

With “This will probably pass in October”, Frank is referring not to HR 1207, but to his own financial regulation bill, which might or might not include some aspects of Ron Paul’s HR 1207. The preceding sentence, “That will be part of the overall federal regulation that we are redacting,” is for some reason missing from the widely distributed transcript, and has therefore been completely ignored by bloggers and commentators.

In recent weeks Ron Paul repeatedly warned against just this sort of thing happening: that HR 1207 might become part of a more comprehensive financial regulation bill and be watered down so that it appeases the angry masses without instituting any real changes. It would be an irony of history if that happened — if HR 1207 were watered down and integrated into an unconstitutional bill that Ron Paul would have to vote against.

What did Ron Paul really say?

It has become fashionable for the political elite to try to distort Ron Paul’s statements for political gain or even put entirely new words into his mouth. Just the other day, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, “Even [Ron Paul] recognizes how important it is to us to have the Fed independent of politics.”

Now Barney Frank claims that “[Ron Paul] agrees that we don’t want to have the audit appear as if it influences monetary policy as that would be inflationary.”

Ron Paul never said that an audit of the Federal Reserve would be inflationary. In fact, he has credibly demonstrated the exact opposite: that the secretive Federal Reserve itself is responsible for inflation, with the dollar having lost 96% of its value since the Fed’s creation in 1913.

Here is what Ron Paul actually said about HR 1207, the bill to audit the Federal Reserve, and why only a real audit will protect the public’s interest.

Ron Paul: “Mr. Speaker, the big guns have lined up against HR 1207, the bill to audit the Federal Reserve. What is it that they are so concerned about? What information are they hiding from the American people? The screed is: transparency is okay except for those things they don’t want to be transparent.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, argues that HR 1207, the legislation to audit the Federal Reserve, would politicize monetary policy. He claims that monetary policy must remain independent, that is; secret. He ignores history because chairmen of the Federal Reserve in the past, especially when up for reappointment, do their best to accommodate the president with politically driven low interest rates and a bubble economy.

Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Arthur Burns, when asked about all the inflation he brought about in 1971 before Nixon’s reelection, said that the Fed has to do what the president wants it to do, or it would lose its independence. That about tells you everything.

Not by accident Chairman Burns strongly supported Nixon’s program of wage and price controls the same year, but I guess that’s not political. Is not making secret deals with the likes of Goldman Sachs, international financial institutions, foreign governments and foreign central banks politicizing monetary policy?

Bernanke argues that the knowledge that their discussions and decisions will one day be scrutinized will compromise the freedom of the Open Market Committee to pursue sound policy. If it is sound and honest and serves no special interest, what’s the problem?

He claims that HR 1207 would give power to Congress to affect monetary policy. He dreamt this up to instill fear, an old statist trick to justify government power. HR 1207 does nothing of the sort. He suggested that the day after an FOMC meeting, Congress could send in the GAO to demand an audit of everything said and done. This is hardly the case. The FOMC function under HR 1207 would not change.

The detailed transcripts of the FOMC meetings are released every 5 years, so why would this be so different and what is it that they don’t want the American people to know? Is there something about the transcripts that need to be kept secret, or are the transcripts actually not verbatim?

Fed sycophants argue that an audit would destroy the financial markets’ faith in the Fed. They say this in the midst of the greatest financial crisis in history brought on by none other than the Federal Reserve. In fact, Chairman Bernanke stated on November 14th 2007, “A considerable amount of evidence indicates that Central Bank transparency increases the effectiveness of monetary policy and enhances economic and financial performance”.

They also argue that an audit would hurt the value of the U.S. dollar. In fact, the Fed, in less than a 100 years of its existence, has reduced the value of the 1914 dollar by 96%.

They claim HR 1207 would raise interest rates. How could it? The Fed sets interest rates and the bill doesn’t interfere with monetary policy. Congress would have no say in the matter and besides, Congress likes low interest rates.

It is argued that the Fed wouldn’t be free to raise interest rates if they thought it necessary. But Bernanke has already assured the Congress that rates are going to stay low for the foreseeable future. And again, this bill does nothing to allow Congress to interfere with interest rate setting.

Fed supporters claim that they want to protect the public’s interest with their secrecy. But the banks and Wall Streets are the opponents of HR 1207, and the people are for it. Just who best represents the public’s interest?

The real question is: why are Wall Street and the Fed so hysterically opposed to HR 1207? Just what information are they so anxious to keep secret? Only an audit of the Federal Reserve will answer these questions.”

75% Want A Real Audit

We need to keep up the pressure to make sure that HR 1207 itself is put up for vote. 75% of the American people want a real audit of the Federal Reserve, not a pretend investigation that goes to great pains not to ruffle any feathers, claiming that too close a look at what the Wizard is doing behind the curtain would be “inflationary” (Frank) and “problematic for the country” (Geithner).

Barney Frank Says House Will Pass Audit the Fed Bill

Yeah, promises, promises. Barney Frank Says House Will Pass Ron Paul's HR1207 to Audit the Fed in October.