The Fed??s New Powers, What Will Ron Paul Say?

[align=left]March 29th, 2008 8:14 am
The US economy is going up in flames. If Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has his way the solution is to pump in more gasoline. Free market capitalism is being tortured and the federal regulators are holding all of the killing devices. Now they want more.
Yesterday Treasury Secretary Paulson unveiled a plan that would give the Federal Reserve the power to regulate every aspect of the US economy. They would have authority over the entire banking sector as well as the entire securities industry. Once again the well meaning do-gooders approach the problem by creating more problems and bureaucracy. An interesting question is then? will this make the Federal Reserve an actual government agency? It seems it will. Currently it is technically a private organization, more aptly a cabal.
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This proposal is reminiscent of the knee jerk reaction of the Bush administration in creating the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11. Instead of actually streamlining and cutting waste we combine wasteful departments to create a new leviathan of waste. I wonder what catchy title this new expanded Federal Reserve organization will have? I have a suggestion, the ??Department of the American Economic Apocalypse?. I can??t wait to see what the meaning will be of each color in the new ??Economic Threat Advisory System? (reference). Oh no! The economic threat level is in the Red! Sell your stocks now!
It will be interesting to see the gamut of opinion bouncing around regarding these new proposals. It already seems some Democrats in Congress are somehow of the opinion it doesn??t do enough. There is only one word for that: scary. These new regulatory suggestions will have to be approved by Congress and it is likely that they will. After all there is nothing worse than being viewed as a ??do nothing? legislator. From my perspective, in this day in age, there is nothing better.
I anxiously await the reaction to this from Ron Paul. He will no doubt echo some of the words above. On this I sincerely hope that he isn??t the lone voice of dissent. It will also be interesting to see the reaction from presumptive GOP nominee John McCain. He??s been attacked from the left about his ??do nothing? approach to the economy. Of course that is just politics. He would certainly do something. The only question is would he approve of this? I guess we??ll have answers to these questions soon enough.