Word: feds
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...Current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has had to explain himself on Capitol Hill a lot more often than that. As Bernanke waited to give his semiannual Humphrey-Hawkins testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on the morning of July 21, Alabama Republican Spencer Bachus thanked him for his "willingness to make yourself available on countless numbers of occasions." Since February, the Fed chairman has been called to testify about Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch, the government's bailout of AIG, the federal budget deficit, the Fed's various new lending programs and the economic outlook...
...this willingness to explain policies and chat with Congress about them hasn't endeared Bernanke and the Fed to all its members. Far from it. After thanking Bernanke in his opening remarks, Bachus - the ranking Republican on the committee - went on to complain that the Fed had taken on too much authority and should restrict itself in the future to setting monetary policy. Texas Republican Ron Paul, whose calls to abolish the Fed have gotten more attention lately than they used to, claimed that "the Federal Reserve, in collaboration with giant banks, has created the greatest financial crisis ever seen...
...surprisingly, then, Bernanke's testimony went well beyond the usual Humphrey-Hawkins report on how the Fed is doing in meeting its two congressionally mandated goals of maintaining stable prices and full employment (fine on the first, not so fine on the second) to defend the Fed against the rising tide of criticism in Congress. (Read "The Fed Holds Steady: Mixed Signals on the Economy...
...actions taken last fall by the Fed, Treasury, Congress and governments around the world "may well have averted the collapse of the global financial system, an event that would have had extremely adverse and protracted consequences for the world economy," Bernanke said. Market improvements were already allowing the Fed to unwind some of the extraordinary actions it took last fall, with credit extended to banks and other financial firms declining from $1.5 trillion at the end of 2008 to less than $600 billion now. Congressional meddling in Federal Reserve decision-making - there are proposals to increase Congress's audit authority...
...brother, also called Malachy. "Insane outbreaks of laughter saved us." McCourt once said that as a child he dreamed of being a prison inmate in the U.S., for the food and warmth. Instead he became a hospital inmate: he caught typhoid at age 10 and spent three months well fed in a well-heated hospital. The hospital also had a well-stocked library. It was there that he read his first lines of Shakespeare and began a lifetime as a devoted reader...