We Need A Change At The Federal Reserve
By Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
The Federal Reserve has four main responsibilities: to conduct monetary policy in a way that leads to maximum employment and stable prices; to maintain the safety and soundness of financial institutions; to contain systemic risk in financial markets; and to protect consumers against deceptive and unfair financial products.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has failed in all four of these responsibilities.
As head of the central bank since 2006, Bernanke could have demanded that Wall Street provide adequate credit to small and medium-sized businesses to create decent-paying jobs in a productive economy, but he did not.
He could have insisted that large bailed-out banks end the usurious practice of charging interest rates of 30 percent or more on credit cards, but he did not.
He could have broken up too-big-to-fail financial institutions that took Federal Reserve assistance, but he did not.
He could have revealed which banks took more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed secret loans, but he did not.
Mr. Bernanke did not prevent the buildup of as massive speculative bubble which dragged this nation, and the world, into the deepest recession since the the 1930s. Since Mr. Bernanke took over as Fed chairman in 2006, unemployment has more than doubled and, today, 17.5 percent of the American workforce is either unemployed or underemployed.
Not since the Great Depression has the financial system been as unsafe, unsound, and unstable as it has been during Mr. Bernanke's tenure.
We believe it is time for a new Chair at the Federal Reserve Bank. Mr. Bernanke should not be appointed to another term as Chair.
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