***** I guess the FED is really worried abourt Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill. Look what they are doing now.
Fed Intends to Hire Lobbyist in Campaign to Buttress Its Image
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By Robert Schmidt
June 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve intends to hire a veteran lobbyist as it seeks to counter skepticism in Congress about the central bank's growing power over the U.S. financial system, people familiar with the matter said.
Linda Robertson currently handles government, community and public affairs at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and headed the Washington lobbying office of Enron Corp., the energy trading company that collapsed in 2002 after an accounting scandal. She was also an adviser to all three of the Clinton administration's Treasury secretaries.
Robertson would help the Fed manage relations with lawmakers seeking greater oversight of a central bank that has used emergency powers to prevent Wall Street's demise. While she wasn't tied to Enron's fraud, her association with the firm may raise questions, analysts said.
"Some members of Congress think there are votes in attacking the Fed" after it "unnecessarily and unwisely entangled monetary policy with fiscal policy," said former St. Louis Fed President William Poole. "The Fed is going to have a tricky time of unwinding what has been done" and will need to "keep in touch with members of Congress more thoroughly," said Poole, now senior fellow with the Cato Institute in Washington.
Robertson served under Treasury Secretaries Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin and Lloyd Bentsen. She didn't return calls seeking comment.
Summers Tie
Summers now heads the White House National Economic Council. Along with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, he is leading Obama administration efforts to broaden the economic rescue and overhaul financial regulation. He has been mentioned as a possible successor to Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke should Bernanke not be renominated when his term ends in January.
Robertson is likely to start at the Fed in July and have the title of senior adviser to the Board of Governors, the people familiar with the situation said.
She was considered for a senior post under Geithner at the Treasury but ran up against the Obama administration's restrictions on hiring lobbyists, the people said.
"People have been asking whether the Fed is capable of getting its job done right," said Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Hiring a former lobbyist from Enron will surely make one wonder."
Lawmaker Pressure
Robertson would confront a range of issues in the newly created position. Congress is looking to subject the Fed to more scrutiny, and some lawmakers have suggested that district bank presidents should be confirmed by the Senate.
Some legislators have also expressed opposition to the Obama administration's attempt to make the Fed the regulator in charge of financial companies deemed too-big-to-fail.
In addition, the central bank has been become a target to some members of Congress who've posted online videos of their interrogations of Fed officials during public hearings.
One YouTube clip, of Florida Democratic Representative Alan Grayson's grilling of Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman, has garnered almost 500,000 views in about a month.
Robertson is expected to advise the Fed on communications strategy, the people said. In recent months, Bernanke has pushed to make the traditionally secretive institution more open. He's done a television interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" program and taken questions from reporters at a National Press Club function in Washington.
According to her biography on the Johns Hopkins Web site, Robertson has spent more than 25 years working on federal legislative issues.
While Robertson's Hopkins biography makes no mention of her work at Enron, federal disclosure documents show she joined the company in 2000 after working at the Treasury. Robertson, who signed some of the forms, said she lobbied on energy and tax issues.
To contact the reporter on this story: Robert Schmidt in Washington at rschmidt5@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 5, 2009 00:01 EDT
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Comments: 31
Ron Paul has a lot of support for his new bill.
Well look, what else is new? Since Obama has been elected, the percentage of non-criminals hired by our government has severely dropped, and the Criminal element has increased...
The percentage on non-criminals has dropped? Dan have you been paying attention. Tax evasion is a criminal offence.
Pathetic...
"Bernanke has pushed to make the traditionally secretive institution more open."
That is why he is fighting the audit. It would make the fed more open to public scrutiny.
I guess they can afford a PR firm. All they have to do is print more money.
I thought Obama said recently there was no more money? Did they add another printing press?
Must have. They are running the ones they have 24/7
why aren't the enviros demanding a slow down of all this tree killing?
Evidently you don't live in the west Charles. Every time an owner sells his timber for cutting the Environmentalists try to stop the harvest. They are trying to set aside another 7 million acress in Montans, 5 million in Wyoming, One fourth of Idaho, part of Oregon and part of Washington as a preserve. No mechanized vehicles allowed. That means no timber is cut.
I live in the South, enviros here tend to be practical types for the most part. The granola types lurk around Atlanta though.
I fled New England from similar ideas and the horrible taxes/government. It used to be rare to find a Yankee down here but not anymore...many have fled and more move here all the time
Are they trying to screw up the South like the Californians are doing with Montana?
They'll probably run out of paper soon, maybe they can use monopoly monies, whatya think?
BTW, they can't have my old monopoly game, it will come in handy, when we can't afford any electricity.
they are worth about the same amount now.
They can't have my monopoly game, PERIOD!
They can have my Monopoly game. I don't play Capitalism. In fact, I'll even donate my junk mail, which should power New England for the next Century.
John, If you live in the US, work for a living and trying to get ahead in life you ARE a Capitalist.
Hey, I'll donate my junk mail to that.
I do live in the US. I don't work. I have closed my bank accounts and although that does present regular difficulties I manage to overcome them. I've disconnected my cable because I disdain propaganda. I am able to download movies, even new releases, for free. I keep a pay-as-you-go cell phone. I grow almost all of my own food. I buy almost nothing. We make our own clothing from recycled material. We rarely drive our vehicle.
When I was a kid the corner grocery store and the corner pharmacy served all of my needs which included being greeted by employees I knew that lived nearby and knew my name. That's been replaced by Wal-Mart and Walgreens where I don't shop. I don't eat additives so McDonalds and Burger King have nothing for me and neither do most other food purveyors because what they purvey can hardly be called food. I am personally disgusted with what Americans have allowed America to become. This has become the land of the imprisoned and the home of the meek and apathetic. My most frightening observation is that most can't see the bars of their prison.
People were designed more for singing, art, dance, intellectual conversation and play than working at mundane professions to support manufactured lifestyles with weekends off where the stress of life and child rearing causes them to vegetate in front of a box disseminating propaganda designed to create continued pursuit of an abstract and debilitating lifestyle. We live as though we'll never die and we die as though we never lived. The filthy rich sing, dance, enjoy intellectual conversation and do as they choose with their time. It's a construct that by design allows them to continue at our expense.
If everyone had the opportunity through shear work to become filthy rich my perspective might be different. The factory worker, no matter how hard she works, remains a factory worker.
American or Western or Capitalist societies must, by definition, be composed of a very few filthy rich, a large number of Middle Classers and a large number of poor living below the poverty line. People that constantly complain that the poor should pick themselves up and get a job and work their way out of poverty don't understand the nature of the system.
I am personally comfortable and you probably are too but millions are not.
Non-participation in an unjust system is the only method I have in terms of non-violent protest. The system will never be fixed by working within it. It's irreparably broken.
I admire your pioner spirit John. I knew another man who did that years ago, in fact several.
I certianly hope you are wrong about our system being irreparably broken.
I do too but I don't think either of us has enough time left to find out. I think it'll be at least 50 years before we see any changes that are positive. The inmates are in charge of the asylum right now.
Hey John speak for yourself, In 50 years I'll only be 121.
Well, that made me laugh out loud!
Without a little humor in these articles some people take them too serious and get all upset.
That's true but by the same token I get a kick out of stirring the pot from time to time.
Peace friend...
That's why I publish some of the things I do.
We agree on many subjects, especially where the government is concerned. We also disagree on certain subjects. That's ok. If the crap ever hit the fan, and I don't expect it will in my lifetime, I would want you on my side.
Thanks John. I fully expect the stuff to hit the fan in the next two to four years. I've been reading spp.com and believe them when they say they will introduce a new currency in 2010 and the NAU in 2012. So far everything is going the way they planned.
OK, well, I'll check out spp.com since you read it.
I read something very interesting this morning. It has some merit. I perused the internet to read about the author, Chris Hedges. Seems like a very intelligent guy without a personal political agenda. Teaches and writes, speaks several languages, has written several books. Here's the link. I posted it on my blog and my Facebook page as well which at least tells you what I thought of it. Scary stuff Colonel. Scary stuff. (I can't do the link thing very well so you'll have to copy and paste)
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090614_the_american_empire_is_bankrupt/
Uh-oh. THAT spp.com!! Ok, well, that's going to be a thrilling read...
The liink you gave me was scarry because it dovetailes with the announced plans of the SPP and what Ron Paul has been warning us about. If that meeting in Russia goes as stated it wll take about a year for the colapse of the dollar. That is when the AMERO and the NAU will be created. The target date is 2010.
I agree Colonel. Scary and also quite telling. It's likely the meeting will go as stated. Why should these countries pay for our wars against them? It's like paying to acquire cancer.
I don't think I would do that so why should they.