The Fed Plays Cute

http://www.thenation.com/blog/167432/fed-plays-cute

The august Federal Reserve is not given to slapstick humor, but sometimes it can’t resist. Dylan Ratigan, the spirited talker from MSNBC, and the Huffington Post joined forces to assault the traditional secrecy of the central bank. Months ago, they filed a freedom of information request, asking the Fed to make available the meeting minutes of Fed decision makers from 2007 to 2010. Those were the critical years of financial collapse and massive bailouts when the Fed dispensed trillions of dollars to comfort the panicky financial system and prop up insolvent banks.

At this late date, the request seems reasonable. After all, the banking crisis is long over—or so they say—and by now the public ought to be able to examine how and why the Fed governors decided to launch their extravagant rescue of Wall Street. Normally, the Fed keeps the records of these official deliberations secret for five years before releasing them. But the last five years were not normal. They remain the source of popular anger and political upheaval.

Months passed. Finally, a big package was delivered to the two media outlets—513 pages of verbatim discussions by the Federal Open Market Committee, the decision makers who set monetary policy and authorize the big-ticket loans and guarantees for troubled financial institutions. Imagine the high drama those pages would reveal.

“Good morning, everybody,” Chairman Ben Bernanke announced. The page went blank, actually gray. The only words that appeared were the names of the numerous participants, followed by page after page of empty gray space. At the bottom each page it said in bold type “Authorized for Public Release.” Then Bernanke spoke again. “So we’ve had a motion without objection. Okay, then the swap lines are approved. Let’s turn now to the economic situation.” Etc., etc. More empty gray pages—roughly 500 of them.