Washington's Blog — We’ve Known for Some Time that the NSA Is Spying On Congress

When one branch of government spies on another, “America has no functioning democracy”.

Washington's Blog
We’ve Known for Some Time that the NSA Is Spying On Congress

Keith Wagstaff — What should the minimum wage be?

Setting aside the rancor of the political class, several economists argue that $7.25 an hour is far too low

Summary of proposals. Well researched report.

This Week
What should the minimum wage be?
Keith Wagstaff
(h/t beowulf in the comments at Monetary Realism)

The Guardian — Alan Grayson's requests for NSA information – read the correspondence

Emails show how Democratic congressman Alan Grayson repeatedly asked to meet John C Inglis, the deputy director of the NSA, but was continually rebuffed

The Guardian (UK)
Alan Grayson's requests for NSA information – read the correspondence

Makes one wonder what else the US government is hiding behind the wall of national security and the surveillance state.

Grayson — Fed played Russian roulette

Former U.S. congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) appeared on Countdown Monday evening to discuss how an audit of the Federal Reserve revealed the private bank giving $26 trillion to U.S and foreign banks without Congress’ authorization.

“For the first time in history, I’m talking the 100 year history of the Federal Reserve, they played favorites,” Grayson told host Keith Olbermann. “They said we’ll give a hundred billion to this institution, another hundred billion to this institution, and so on down the line, when you and I couldn’t even come close to accessing that kind of money of those terms.”

Grayson mentioned the leniency the Fed had with giving money to the banks.

“They lend out this money at 0.01 percent interest,” he said. “Go try to get a loan like that from your bank. It was corporate welfare, pure and simple, and what they were doing is they were playing around with the value of the money in your pocket, and the money in my pocket.”

“They were taking the U.S dollars and playing Russian Roulette with it, giving it out in enormous staggering sums in the hope that they might get it back. They did get most of it back, but what about next time.”

 Read the rest at Raw Story with video
Grayson: Fed played ‘Russian roulette’ with U.S. money

by Andrew Jones

Grayson points out that these decisions were made by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The FRBNY is a private corporation, as are all the regional Federal Reserves banks. That means that they are under the control of the financial sector rather than of elected officials accountable to the public.