De defensa

C’est la première fois que, d’une manière publique et très substantive, le président de la Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, prend la plume. Cela se passait dimanche, le 29 novembre 2009, dans le prestigieux Washington Post. L’occasion n’est pas mince. Bernanke veut avertir l’establishment que les attaques du Congrès contre la Fed constituent un grave danger pour l’équilibre et le bon fonctionnement d’un des piliers du système.

Son avertissement va à ceux qui, au Congrès, veulent, selon lui, “le changement pour le changement”, et non le changement pour que les choses marchent mieux (selon ses conceptions à lui, Bernanke, et pour le bien de la Fed). «For many Americans, the financial crisis, and the recession it spawned, have been devastating – jobs, homes, savings lost. Understandably, many people are calling for change. Yet change needs to be about creating a system that works better, not just differently.»

D’où son attaque contre le Congrès, qui constitue l’essentiel de son message, le reste étant un catalogue des mesures vertueuses que la Federal Reserve se préparer à prendre pour le bien d’elle-même, pour éviter que ce produise à nouveau ce qu’elle a a puissamment aidé à se produire (Bernanke reconnaît la chose: «The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis»)…

Cela donne ceci: «These matters are complex, and Congress is still in the midst of considering how best to reform financial regulation. I am concerned, however, that a number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions. Notably, some leading proposals in the Senate would strip the Fed of all its bank regulatory powers. And a House committee recently voted to repeal a 1978 provision that was intended to protect monetary policy from short-term political influence. These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States. The Fed played a major part in arresting the crisis, and we should be seeking to preserve, not degrade, the institution's ability to foster financial stability and to promote economic recovery without inflation.

»The proposed measures are at least in part the product of public anger over the financial crisis and the government's response, particularly the rescues of some individual financial firms…»

RAW Story, le même 29 novembre 2009, signale la réaction de l’inévitable Ron Paul, le chasseur de Fed par excellence, l’un des plus actifs adversaires de Bernanke au Congrès avec sa loi H.R.1207, qui vient de franchir un pas décisif en étant approuvée le 19 novembre par 43 voix contre 26 par la commission clef des matières financières à la Chambre des Représentants. (Ce qui est notamment une des causes de l'intervention publique de Bernanke.)

«Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), who has sought to audit the nation's largest bank for nearly 27 years, does not believe Bernanke's fears are substantiated. “There is no reason why the world can't know, eventually, what the Fed is doing,” he said recently. […] “[It] would require the Government Accountability Office to audit the central bank's interest rate policy, agreements with foreign governments, foreign central banks and the International Monetary Fund,” according to MarketWatch. “It also would permit audits of a roughly $800 billion Fed mortgage-backed securities purchase program, which could grow to $1.25 trillion, Paul said.”»

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