Professor Elam

Ben Bernake Fed Chair is up for re appointment. Here is an excellent article that frames the question. 

The article points out that the FED has not produced al the documents about saving AIG which of course saved Goldman. Recall that Lehman was not saved. I have assigned several articles for the intermediate and ethics classes to read which provide background on these events of the last two years. 

This is high drama on a real world stage. The article makes the parallel between now and the election of Andrew Jackson and his opposition to a Second Central Bank. At that time most of America was involved in Agriculture. Farmers and ranchers in the west were highly suspicious of bank schemes hatched on the East Coast, sound familiar?

Then as now the argument was over hard money, deposits backed by gold and silver versus paper money, simply money because the issuer says it is so. Read about the Bank War.  Note that the collapse of the Second Bank of the US led to the Panic of 1837. We have already had the Panics of 1987, 2002, 2008, does another lie ahead this fall?