'Anonymous' threatens Bernanke

[The Northerner]

Run time: 02:44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLzI3Qysa50   Posted on YouTube: June 13, 2011 By YouTube Member: RTAmerica Views on YouTube: 302   Posted on DU: June 13, 2011 By DU Member: The Northerner Views on DU: 1779

 
This video credited to the hacker group Anonymous is calling out Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to resign. Anonymous has called for public protests beginning on June 14th, continuing "until Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke steps down." To make their case, they have presented a list of recent scandalous Federal Reserve actions.

[guyfromla]

1. THEY ARE 100% CORRECT

I do not know who these people are, but all their allegations are 100% true.

[midnight]

4. Welcome. I happen to agree with you... I wonder what the

Federal reserve did with the missing money from Iraq?

[Dj13Francis]

2. I've got a question.

What public space should I occupy? I'm thinking... the local post office? Yeah, that'll go over well...

[MineralMan]

3. Whatever. Anyone can create a video.

I didn't hear any threats there. Good luck with all that, Anonymous.

[On the Road]

5. Now Anonymous Thinks They're Economists

OK

[chervilant]

8. hmm... I didn't get that from this video..

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

[On the Road]

13. They are Making a Whole Set of Economic Judgments,

implying base motivations to policy decisions, and repeating a lot of talking points without understanding them.

One of the first ones is that the Fed gave trillions of taxpayer dollars to the financial industries. That money was loaned and the overwhelming majority was paid back. The benefits were saving the financial industry and that the economy along with it, avoiding many billions in FDIC reimbursements to account holders of failed banks, protecting business accounts that are used for payroll and paying vendors, and a host of other impacts they obviously don't grasp. They also seem to attribute TARP and related programs to the Fed rather than to Treasury.

Anonymous appears to believe that the Fed will not let large financial institutions fail due to their support of the industry over taxpayers, ignoring the fact that Lehman and Bear Stearns were allowed to fail, while others such as Merrill Lynch were handled in a way that severely penalized stockholders.

The Fed is not responsible for fiscal policy or for borrowing. All they can do is manage the money supply, interest rates, and a few other things. Most of the regulation of the industry is done by agencies in the executive branch. Anonymous charges that the Fed devalued the dollar and raised the price of commodities. This is sort of true, but the driver is the continuing deficit and resulting borrowing. The Fed can do nothing about that other than try to ameliorate the situation with bizarre programs like QE and QE2. Devaluing the dollar is unfortunately the right strategy -- it is a big part of China's rise to economic power. And it's helped US exports a lot over the last year or two.

I don't necessarily disagree with them on everything. Did they mention executive bonuses? If so, I am right with them on that one. (Although I think that they may not appreciate what it would be like trying to overrule private compensation in the middle of a crisis.)

When you throw all kinds of stuff against the wall the good points tend to get hidden behind the bad ones. Same with attributing motives -- anyone who can see a perfectly good rationale is going to dismiss the entire plan.

So yes, I think Anonymous is making economic judgments without sufficient ability to evaluate them. That's what is meant by saying they think they're economists.

[chervilant]

15. Well, now...

So yes, I think Anonymous is making economic judgments without sufficient ability to evaluate them. That's what is meant by saying they think they're economists.

Yours is a false equivalence. Many of us make 'economic judgments' with what economists and many corporatists would claim is not 'sufficient ability to evaluate them.' That does not mean that we 'think we're economists.' Nor does it mean that our 'economic judgments' are wrong.

Furthermore, your questionable assertion suggests that all 'economists' know whereof they speak. Some do, some don't. However, the relative erudition of 'trained' economists is not relevant to the concern many of us have about radical income inequity.

My take on Anonymous is that, whoever THEY are, THEY are concerned about our nation's ever increasing radical income inequity, and the requisite power imbalance that enables a very few to control and manipulate the very many.

Radical income inequity MUST be addressed. The corporate megalomaniacs MUST be stopped. I hope you will participate in all protests against radical income inequity, including the one in Freedom Plaza on October 6.

[SDuderstadt]

12. I doubt that many here...

even understands what the Fed does or how it does it.

[ooglymoogly]

6. KR and god spead...nt

[Marblehead]

7. hope

[midnight]

9. Bernake has a 100% control over the biggest income disparity gap

of any industrial country. I wonder if this is an agenda killer for the White House and not Anthony Weiner?

[SDuderstadt]

14. WTF?

Could you explain/prove that?

[FrankinMO]

10. We were warned long ago...

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs." ~Thomas Jefferson

[civilisation]

11. if they can do half of what they did to SONY,. then godspeed!

The banksters are in need of a real opposing force to their continuing rape, pillage, plunder pogrom of destruction, on the people of the world. SLA + Anonymous = trouble for banking gangsters that we have been letting run sht for far too long,. . the time has come.