Will It Ever Stop?

Hi Everyone,

I have blogged about this problem before, but it never seems to stop. When will this stop? What I am talking about is when politicians state, for lack of better words......... outright lies and then protray those statements as the truth; their truth.

Case in point is on August 17th, Presidential candidate, Republican, Texas Governor Rick Perry said the following, and I quote; "The Federal Reserve should open their books up, they should be transparent so the American people know what they are doing. It would go a long way toward either finding out whether or not there is some activities that are improper, or that they've been handling themselves quite well. But until they do that, I think there will continue to be questions about their activity and what their true goal is for the United States."

News flash... according to today's Gannet paper, the Fed has become one of the most transparent agencies in government. Its' books are open. It publishes its' balance sheet every week, which tells us how much the Fed has lent out to banks, how many bonds it has accumulated and how much money the banks are parking at the Fed. The weekly report doesn't say which banks got the loans. But the Dodd-Frank Act ordered a complete audit of the Fed's activities during the 2008 financial crisis, including the banks it helped and how much it gave to them.

FYI, the congressional Government Accountability Office has the authority to go back and audit the Fed's books again and again. The law also requires the Fed itself to disclose details of its emergency loans with a delay.

So here we have a seemingly intelligent politician making a statement that is totally false, but he continues to try to pass off his lie as the truth; his truth. If a politician makes an inaccurate statement, common sense dictates that he/she should apologize for the mistake and move on. Unfortunatley, that is not how the political game is played. Obviously, common sense would and should also dictate that one should not lie, ever. It will come back to bite you.

Unfortunately, Perry added more salt to his self inflicted wound by saying that Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman's actions border on treason. What? Does Perry even understand the definition of treason? Obviously not since he made the outrageous statement.

Should politicians who blatantly lie be trusted? I think not, but the voters will make up their minds at the polls.

Til next week...

Peter