The U.S. Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, "sets forth no basis for the exemption the Board asks us to read into it," U.S. Circuit Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote in the opinion."If the Board believes such an exemption would better serve the national interest, it should ask Congress to amend the statute."
Further
there is H.R. 1207: Federal
Reserve Transparency Act of 2009.
The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009 (H.R. 1207) is a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives of the 111th United States Congress by Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14). It proposes a reformed audit of the Federal Reserve System (the "Fed") before the end of 2010.
But some observers argue that what is good for the banking system may not be good for the financial system as a whole. They are concerned that banks' efforts to lay off risk using credit derivatives may be creating concentrations of risk outside the banking system that could prove a threat to financial stability. A particular concern has been that, as credit spreads widen appreciably at some point from the extraordinarily low levels that have prevailed in recent years, losses to nonbank risk-takers could force them to liquidate their positions in credit markets and thereby magnify and accelerate the widening of credit spreads.
About those risks Chairman Ben S. Bernanke
said in Jackson Hole:
The issue at this stage is not whether we have the tools to help support economic activity and guard against disinflation. We do. As I will discuss next, the issue is instead whether, at any given juncture, the benefits of each tool, in terms of additional stimulus, outweigh the associated costs or risks of using the tool.
Alan Greenspan on Risks:
I made a mistake in believing that banks in operating in their self-interest would be sufficient to protect their shareholders and the equity in their institutions.
And in The Age of Turbulence:
Adventure in a New World.
The clear evidence of underpricing of risk did not prod private sector risk management to tighten the reins.
In retrospect, it appears that the most market-savvy managers, although conscious that they were taking extraordinary risks, succumbed to the concern that unless they continued to "get up and dance", as ex-Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince memorably put it, they would irretrievably lose market share.
Instead, they gambled that they could keep adding to their risky positions and still sell them out before the deluge Most were wrong.
The last words are from The Expert on the Liquidity Trap in The State of Long-Term Expectations:
In one of the greatest investment markets in the world, namely, New York, the influence of speculation (in the above sense) is enormous. Even outside the field of finance, Americans are apt to be unduly interested in discovering what average opinion believes average opinion to be; and this national weakness finds its nemesis in the stock market.
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