"The US government has bailed out Old Man Europe
three times in the past century and more.
Prior to the start of WWI in 1913,
the allied nations led by the UK borrowed heavily from the US,
...through commercial credits underwritten
by the new federal reserve system.
At the end of the conflict,
the victorious European nations defaulted on their debts to the US government
even as they extracted unfair financial reparations from defeated Germany...
In WWII the allied nations of Europe again led by the UK
borrowed heavily from the US government.
And again the victorious nations of western Europe
defaulted on their financial obligations to the people of the US.
...After WWII, the allied nations of Europe were broke
and the US once again subsidized them via the Marshall Plan
and various related mechanisms intended to rebuild Europe...
...in neither WWI nor WWII
were the entrenched economic and political elites
in Western Europe disturbed.
...under the Marshall Plan,
the Americans did not require significant restructuring
nor the breakup of the old industrial groups.
...By providing financing to the bankrupt nations of Europe,
the Fed is interfering in the internal political affairs of foreign nations.
Whether the Fed is repaid or not is a minor issue
compared to the political and social damage done to the people of Europe
by depriving them of the democratic opportunity
to "throw the rascals out," to use the well-worn American phrase.
...the Fed's economic decision to leave existing corporate and political structures in place
has tremendously damaging effects on the political life of all the nations concerned.
...without the Fed's swap lines, Angela Merkel in Germany
and Nicholas Sarkozy in France
would have preceded Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi
out the political door more than a year ago.
Instead the very same entrenched corporate elites
that have led Europe down the road to economic hell for the past half century
are now clients of Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Board.
...The Constitution clearly and squarely prohibits a congressional delegation
of the power to create monetary claims against the United States.
...The Congress cannot allow claims to be created permanently to an entity
not subject to congressional (a) appropriations or (b) review.
...Are the Fed swap lines a violation of the US Constitution?
Todd: Yes. The Fed, whose liabilities
have the explicit full faith and credit of the United States
and thus should be subject to congressional review,
currently is letting the ECB create "unlimited amounts" of claims against the Fed.
...the Fed now is extending the stuff out a little more than a year.
......How should Congress impeach Bernanke and the other Fed governors
for their reckless foreign intervention?
Todd: ...Claims against the full faith and credit of the United States
have to be approved by Congress.
Otherwise, the people are subjected to whatever noble class
Congress deigns to enshrine.
Tocqueville wrote, in his "Old Regime and the Revolution" (1851),
that the fatal wound to the French constitutional body politic
was administered when Charles VII (15th century) agreed with the nobles
that he would have the right to impose direct taxation on the people unilaterally
as long as he did not tax the nobles.
The IRA: So Bernanke and company are the new nobility,
imposing a tax on US taxpayers via an illegal expenditure
and, indirectly via inflation?
Todd: Don't unlimited Fed swap lines for Europe
and general favoritism toward corporations
...smack mightily of that tone and flavor?
...corporations generally, constitutionally
are supposed to have no better standing before Congress, the Supreme Court,
or God Almighty than the average Joe taxpayer from Peoria, Illinois.
A clause in the Constitution explicitly prohibits the creation of a noble class.
The IRA: So by bailing out ....foreign governments of the EU,
Bernanke is elevating these corporate entities
to the level of "too big to fail" and thus above that of the US citizens?"
Todd: Yes.
Walker Todd
Served as counsel to the discount window
at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the 1980s
Todd later worked at the Cleveland Fed.
Scholar at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER).
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