April 28, 2011
Business reporters seem to have very bad memories. All of the media accounts of Federal Reserve Board Chairman’s first press conference touted his commitment to Fed transparency.
These reporters are apparently too young to remember that the Fed strongly resisted giving out any information about the trillions of dollars of below market loans that it disbursed at the peak of the financial crisis. It only released this information when a coalition of conservative and progressive members of Congress, led by Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders, attached a provision requiring the release to the Dodd-Frank bill. Bernanke had claimed that releasing the information would jeopardize the stability of the financial system.
Bernanke also went to court to block the release of information about discount window borrowing from the Fed. He only gave up and released the requested data after all his legal options were exhausted. The description of Bernanke as unquestioned advocate of increased Fed transparency is wrong.
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