Defanging the Fed: Why It Needs Less Power, Not More
William Greider gives six reasons why handing the Fed more power is a bad idea:
1. It would reward failure. Like the largest banks that have been bailed out, the Fed was a co-author of the destruction.
2. Cumulatively, Fed policy was a central force in destabilizing the US economy.
3. The Fed cannot possibly examine "systemic risk" objectively because it helped to create the very structural flaws that led to breakdown.
4. The Fed can't be trusted to defend the public in its private deal-making with bank executives.
5. Instead of disowning the notorious policy of "too big to fail," the Fed will be bound to embrace the doctrine more explicitly as "systemic risk" regulator.
6. This road leads to the corporate state--a fusion of private and public power, a privileged club that dominates everything else from the top down.
Lots more here.