Comments by "Wojtek The Bear" (@wojtekthebear4958) on "Federal Reserve bank president: Interest rates need to rise" video.

  1. So we'll start with the basics first off. The Chairman of the Fed and the Board of Governors are all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. This is because of the Banking Act of 1935 (http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Events/DetailView/26). Then the Chairman must submit a monetary policy report to Congress twice a year as per legislation (http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/testimony/yellen20160210a.htm). Beyond that, the chairman holds quarterly meetings with both Congress and the media. That not enough for you? Well what about how the Federal Reserve has to go to a government bureau to print federal reserve notes? This is taken directly from the Treasury's website: "Federal Reserve Banks obtain the notes from our Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). It pays the BEP for the cost of producing the notes" (https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/faqs/Currency/Pages/legal-tender.aspx). Well they can still ask for however much to be printed, right? Well, no. Here is another excerpt from the above source: "Congress has specified that a Federal Reserve Bank must hold collateral equal in value to the Federal Reserve notes that the Bank receives. This collateral is chiefly gold certificates and United States securities" so the FRB needs to have enough collateral to even ask for money to be printed. The site says it's because Congress wants to make sure they can disband the Fed whenever they want without taken a ton of liabilities, but I'm not going to give you one huge quote. What about transparency then, you ask? They're still extremely secretive. Again, no. Not only do they have the published Congressional hearings and reports along with their meetings with the media, but they also publish all their financial records. For instance, here's their balance sheet (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/h41.htm), here's their annual report (http://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/annual-report/2015-contents.htm), and here's their financial statement (http://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/annual-report/2015-contents.htm). You'll notice that on the first couple pages it gives the Audited report from KPMG. Yeah, that's not unusual. Here's 2014's report where they were audited by Deloitte (http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/BSTcombinedfinstmt2014.pdf). Also here you can find the individual audited financial records of each regional Federal Reserve bank (http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_fedfinancials.htm). That still not enough for you, well don't worry about them colluding with accounting firms. As per SEC regulation, they have to follow GAAP, which means that they aren't allowed to use any other services of an accounting firm that's auditing them. They are then audited by the Office of the Inspector General (in the above link) and the Government Accountability Office (http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/reform_audit.htm).
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