If the Fed’s activities are really “in the public interest,” as its lawyer repeated endlessly during the House of Representatives Anti-Fed Hearing last week, one wonders why the public is not permitted to know about them. Who would object to having their own interests being “served”? Could it be that “the public” might possibly disagree about whose interest is being served by trillion dollar bailouts of Wall Street banksters, or the Fed policy of forcing banks to make hundreds of billions of dollars in bad loans to unqualified borrowers under the “Community Reinvestment Act”?
I always make it a point to tell my undergraduate students that whenever a politician, bureaucrat, or lobbyist begins using phrases like “the public interest” or “the common good,” it’s time to hold on to your wallet.
9:10 am on September 28, 2009
