Bernanke & the central banks dislike transparency

Though Bernanke's November 18 comments didn't seem to get a whole lot of press when he seemingly smirked while claiming the world's central planners central banks are selling their gold, obviously someone is buying it. But who?

Though the reporting is unsurprisingly murky, it seems Iran and China are among the central banks buying gold. And there are other reports that global gold demand is rising. But why the disconnect?

My guess is Helicopter Ben is spewing Happy Talk that's largely disconnected from reality. He doesn't want anyone to associate an increase in gold demand with a loss in confidence in the dollar.

Of course if there is a loss in dollar confidence, one may associate that with Bush's determination to run the printing presses 24/7. And I now see that I'm far from alone in wondering what the the Fed is doing behind its closed doors.

It seems Bloomberg asked for a few details on some of the Fed's newly minted money:

Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve refused a request by Bloomberg News to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Bloomberg filed suit Nov. 7 under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act requesting details about the terms of 11 Fed lending programs, most created during the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The Fed responded Dec. 8, saying it’s allowed to withhold internal memos as well as information about trade secrets and commercial information. The institution confirmed that a records search found 231 pages of documents pertaining to some of the requests. (by Mark Pittman)

I'm so glad Congress added those safeguards!

Perhaps we should simply pull an Andrew Jackson and End the Fed. Bernanke and Obama's new money guy, Geithner, are unbelievably arrogant. They both need to go.

Tim White