Did you know it has been over forty years since there has been an audit and actual count of the Gold stored in Fort Knox?

I would like to know what we really have, I’ll wager it is not as much as we have been led to believe.

But the devil is in the details. My qs are: who would do the auditing? Is it a person or group that is trustworthy? Would they know what they’re doing and what they’re looking for? Last but not least, how much control would they have over the Fed? As you say, Erick, it would be more than disastrous for Congress (esp. this one!) to get control of monetary policy, and we have to make sure that auditing is done in such a way that it doesn’t take away the independence of the Federal Reserve.

From an emotional, pitchfork-and-torches aspect, though, I have to say that if they did have their independence taken away, it would be richly deserved, given their actions with regards to the banking crisis and de facto nationalization of the banking system.

I can see the argument for doing an audit. But look at the makeup of those who would be entrusted with the audit. Does anyone truly believe they would not politicize this as well? The dems have the majority, they are in the leadership, so they would be doing the audit. How much could we trust their findings? How much would they try to use that audit as a way to expand their power further? It would be just like the census.

The General Accounting Office reports to Congress on the financial and operational activities of Cabinet departments and other agencies. To audit the Fed, the GAO would have to staff up with people who have bank operations and auditing experience. In the present environment, this should not be difficult.

chsw

An audit agency already exists

I’m not sure we want to use out-of-work finance people to staff the audit team, at least not before we make sure that these aren’t the one’s who help get us into this mess. (That would probably mean at least no people from Fannie or Freddie.)

Currency Bill – Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (H.R. 7837)

Sec. 17 – Notes Issues

Federal reserve notes, to be issued at the discretion of the Federal reserve board for the purpose of making advances to Federal reserve banks through the Federal reserve agents as hereinafter set forth and for no other purpose are hereby authorized. The said notes shall be obligations of the United States and shall be receivable for all taxes and other public dues, except customs. They shall be redeemed in gold on demand at the Treasury Department of the United States, in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, or in gold or lawful money at any Federal reserve bank.

Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution – Limits on Congress

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

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Erick… maybe I’m just a little too simple in my thinking and I have way too much common sense, but my reading of the above is that Congress is in violation of the Constitution for allowing the Federal Reserve (an entity Congress created) to draw from the Treasury without proper accounting to the public.

I know someone will say that printing fiat money is not “drawing from” the Treasury. But, the fact is that the notes are in effect obligating the Treasury for that amount and is therefore a draw in advance.

In any event, there is no accounting to the public for any of it.

In the short-term, I agree that the Fed needs to be audited. But, I think that will be whitewashed. It really needs to be abolished.