HR1207 - "Audit The Fed"
Thursday, September 24. 2009
Posted by
Karl Denninger
HR 1207 is having a hearing tomorrow on auditing The Federal Reserve.
There has been much made of whether a Fed Audit would "compromise" Fed independence.
This is the wrong standard to apply.
The correct standard is whether The Fed should, under the law, be truly independent in the first place. There I look to
The Constitution.
Article 1 says in part: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitut....html#section2
Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
Notice two things:
It is Congress that has the right to borrow money, not Treasury. Those are very different branches of government (legislative .vs. executive.) Ergo "Treasury Bills" are in fact, absent explicit authorization (and no, a "debt ceiling" is not explicit authorization) unenforceable against The United States (are the Chinese aware of what our Constitution says, and that under a plain reading of it they are in fact holding worthless toilet paper should we so decide?)
and
It is Congress that has the right to regulate the value of money (through control of its issuance and value), not The Fed or Treasury (the executive.) That power rests in the legislative branch of government - and nowhere else.
These Constitutional provisions stand, 230-some years later, unchanged by lawful amendment.
Now let's talk about what The Fed has
usurped on their own initiative in direct contravention of The Constitution, and therefore, as it stands at present, The Fed is operating in a form and fashion that
requires The Congress (singularly and in conjunction, where each member has taken an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic) to act. I shall list each of my charges and specifications along with the evidence thereupon against The Fed as currently constituted:
Continues: http://market-ticker.denninger.net/a...t-The-Fed.html