Unmask the Federal Reserve

Guest post (I copied and pasted an email from him) from Congressman Alan Grayson...

Last year, I asked the Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board who received $1 trillion in funds that the Fed handed out to domestic banks and financial institutions. He said, essentially, "I'm not going to tell you." More recently, I asked the Chairman of the Fed who received the half trillion dollars - that's $500,000,000,000 - that the Fed handed over to foreign central banks. He said he didn't know. Half a trillion dollars, and he doesn't know!

That kind of ignorance and arrogance must end. We need to audit the Fed. And now we're closer than ever.

The House passed our bill to conduct the first independent audit of the Fed in its 96-year history. Now it's time for the Senate to act.

A bipartisan group of Senators is pushing for an amendment to audit the Fed. This amendment is similar to the legislation that we passed in the House last year. It's called the Federal Reserve Accountability Amendment. It will ensure that the American people know to whom the Fed is lending our money.

A vote on the amendment is imminent. Time is of the essence. Visit UnmaskTheFed.com NOW to contact your Senators, and call on them to cosponsor and support the Federal Reserve Accountability Amendment.

The amendment is simple. If it passes, the Fed finally will be audited. Regarding all those billions that the Fed hands out like party favors, we will find out who, what, when, where and how. (We already know "why" - the answer to that question is "Wall Street Greed".) But if this amendment fails, the Fed can continue to make hand out our money to whomever it wants, without telling Congress or the American People.

We think we can pass the Senate Amendment, with your help. The amendment is already cosponsored by progressive heroes like Bernie Sanders, Pat Leahy and Russ Feingold. And joining us in this strange-bedfellows coalition are John McCain, Jim DeMint, David Vitter and Sam Brownback. (We hesitate to use the terms "bedfellows" and "David Vitter" in the same sentence, but that would be changing the subject.)

With such bipartisan support, you'd think that passing this legislation would be a slam dunk. Wrong. Wall Street bankers and their lobbyists are twisting arms and pouring millions into the campaign coffers of politicians on both sides of the political divide, to keep their sweetheart Fed loans under wraps. It's time to counter their influence-peddling by making the Senate listen to the united voice of the American People. (That would be you.)

It's time to step up the pressure. Contact your Senators NOW at UnmasktheFed.com.

Courage,

Alan

Is the Banking Crisis Over

Is it possible that the actions of not just only President Obama but those of former President Bush have stemmed the tide of the banking crisis? Scanning the news today it was refreshing to see that Citigroup doesn’t think it will need anymore cash infusion from the government and is looking forward to running in the black from this point forward. Over at Reuters they have this to say from CEO Richard Parsons of Citigroup..

By John Poirier and Diane Bartz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc Chairman Richard Parsons said on Thursday that the bank does not need any more capital injections from the government and expressed confidence that Citi would remain in private hands.

Asked in an interview with Reuters whether Citigroup needed additional government capital injections, Parsons said: "No, I think actually, particularly with the latest conversion... Citi is actually one of the better capitalized banks in the world." - Reuters

Then I look over at Bank of America and they are good to go too! They don’t need no stinking money either. Could this crisis be turning a corner where the big fish will now feed on all the little fish in the banking industry? Bloomberg is reporting that the bank has been profitable since the beginning of the year and has this report…

Bank of America Expects to Post Full-Year 2009 Profit
By Christopher Condon and Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam

March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. bank, expects to make money for the full year after posting a profit for January and February, Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lewis said.

“We have been profitable for the first two months of the year,” Lewis told reporters after a speech to the Boston College Chief Executives’ Club in Boston today. “We expect to be profitable” in 2009. In his speech, Lewis said the bank may earn $50 billion this year, measured before taxes and provisions, and the company won’t need more federal aid. - Bloomberg

Word to the wise to those of you with some free cash to invest, you might want to look at both of these companies as part of your near future investments. Citi closed at $1.67 today and that price has nowhere to go but up in my honest opinion. Bank of America closed at $5.85 per share today. Or could it be that the strong arm of the Obama administration is scaring the pants off of the big banks with their hands out? Or could it be that they (big banks) don't want the endless gravy trough at the top to end with government intervention? I'm leaning towards a little of both, yes they can turn things around on their own and no they don't want the Federal Reserve telling them how much they can skim off the top in bonuses and mega salaries. Was there truly a banking crisis at all or was it a free for all at the taxpayers expense? Things that make you go hmmm…

One has to look at the stock market as a gambling den, so much money goes in and the same amount of money comes out. It is a matter of perspective of who lost and who won at the end of the day. If $500 bucks went into the poker game, then $500 bucks came out. It's all in who won the game that day or for that matter that year. Belly up to the bar boys and girls, Citigroup and Bank of America are back in play.

Papamoka

Screw You OPEC and Wall Street!

With the never ending rise in the price of oil comes the never ending desire of Americans to find a better way. Some months ago I wrote a piece on the strangle hold that OPEC has on not just America but the world. In it I mentioned that the last stage coach was probably the best built carriage in the world but the combustion engine eventually put it out of its misery.

American’s can be a funny group of people. We are not well liked around the world for many reasons and one of them is our arrogance or intolerance of anyone saying “It can not be done!” Screw you, or some other creative twist of the English language is usually replied in return. Not in the board rooms of our nations corporations but in the barns, the sheds, the garages of Americans that know that IT can be done!

If you look at all of the papers today, oil is and will break $100 per barrel simply because it can if the market wants to see that number. Joe Six-Pack American aka a mongrel dog of European, Asia, Africa, South America and North America descent is chucking the bird at Wall Street and finding a better and cheaper way to not only run his Chevy but your Ford and Buick as well. What is that old saying about being an American is like baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet? We need to add anti OPEC garage scientist to the list.

Over at the New York Times they have this great piece on yet many possible new fuels for your car or truck, a must read …

The Energy Challenge
Fuel Without the Fossil

DENVER — Mitch Mandich proudly showed off his baby, a 150-foot contraption of tanks, valves, hoppers, augers and fans. It hissed. It gurgled. An incongruous smell wafted through the air, the scent of turpentine.

Mr. Mandich’s machine devours pine chips from Georgia and turns them into an energy-rich gas, a step toward making liquid fuels. His company, Range Fuels, is near the front of the pack in a technology race that could have an impact on the way America powers its automotive fleet, and help ameliorate global warming.

“Somebody’s going to hit a home run here,” Mr. Mandich said. “We want to be first.”
For years, scientists have known that the building blocks in plant matter — not just corn kernels, but also corn stalks, wood chips, straw and even some household garbage — constituted an immense potential resource that could, in theory, help fill the gasoline tanks of America’s cars and trucks. - New York Times

Leave it up to American’s to screw up a really great deal by the world oil producers. They can finally afford to buy Canada and those nasty pesky American’s pull the rug out from under their futures investments. Sponge Bob and the Krusty Crab have never faced such a more evil plot from Plankton. Foiled again but this is just the beginning of the plot.

I’m not big on conspiracy theories. God only knows there are enough whack jobs out there to tell you any theory for any event that happened in the world. I think that I would have to be a total moron to think that the billions of dollars in quarterly profits from big oil companies will try their very best to squash the back yard and garage inventors trying to find a better fuel. Common sense drives my thoughts on this because billions of quarterly profits are at stake. In the news over the next decade or so will be the reports that one start up company after another with a new alternative fuel will be bought up by xyz oil or energy company. With that sale will be the burial of the technology.

Trillions of dollars are at risk if any of these back yard chemist and geniuses make a go of it. Times come and times go and with the beginning of the end of oil as the only source for energy will come a new wave of American ingenuity that comes from an angle that Wall Street and OPEC thought was a waste of time. Is the 200 MPG carburetor a myth or something that was squashed. I put myself in the shoes of the CEO of XYZ Big Oil Corporation and if my product is at risk from a new fuel then I would do everything in my power or ability to take it off the market. That would be common sense. Tens of billions of dollars in quarterly profits can and will make that possible. You can not spend ten billion dollars in profit at the local corner store so what are they doing with all that money? That is the question that nobody is talking about which worries me.

Associated Press
updated 5:53 p.m. ET, Fri., Nov. 9, 2007

WASHINGTON - When gasoline prices first hit $3 a gallon in 2005, irate lawmakers quickly assembled top oil executives for a public grilling.

Pump prices are again above $3, yet the outcry from Congress is barely a whimper by comparison — even after this week’s warning from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that oil near $100 a barrel is a serious economic threat.

The change in tone since Nov. 9, 2005 — when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., castigated oil executives for reaping multimillion-dollar bonuses while “working people struggle” — reflects an altered landscape in terms of energy economics and politics, analysts said. - MSNBC

One of the things that I love about America is that if you put a knife to her throat, thousands of creative minds will find a way to make your blade as dull as hot butter. Screw you OPEC and Wall Street! America has brainiacs that think past your bottom line. Fueling the Chevy is more important than raping your nation for a profit. The price of gas at the pump or the price for filling your heating oil tank is not supply and demand driven, it is greed and gluttony that is setting the price. Meanwhile, Washington is silent. I’m not surprised.

Papamoka

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