Category Archives: ethics

And This from the Fourth Branch of the Federal Government

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Victoria McGrane and Jon Hilsenrath write in The Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Reserve has operated almost entirely behind closed doors as it rewrites the rule book governing the U.S. financial system….

Hmm….

Since the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul became law in July 2010, the Fed has held 47 separate votes on financial regulations, and scores more are coming. In the process it is reshaping the U.S. financial industry by directing banks on…what kind of trading they can engage in and what kind of fees they can charge retailers on debit-card transactions.

It’s hard to have such arrogance when the public is listening in.

But some would disagree with the secretiveness.  Sheila Bair, ex-Chairwoman of the FDIC, suggests

People have a right to know and hear the discussion and hear the presentations and the reasoning for these rules.  All of the other agencies which are governed by boards or commissions propose and approve these rules in public meetings.  I think it would be in the Fed’s interest to do so as well.

Naturally, the Fed insists that there’s nothing wrong with the secrecy.  Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo says with a straight face that open meetings aren’t always the most effective means to increasing public understanding, and they aren’t a gauge of regulators’ work.

You can have a scripted meeting that does not show any engagement at all….

But this is just a red herring.  Scripting is a hazard of all public meetings, not only the Fed’s.  But more to the real point, this argument elides the fact that there’s no increase in public understanding, either, from secret meetings, nor do such closed-door meetings provide any gauge at all of regulators’ work.

Open meetings could also strain the already busy schedules of top Fed officials. The Fed currently has 250 separate rule-writing projects under way.

There’s a hint there, and it has to do with all those regulations and regulation-writing exercises.

For whom do these guys think they work?

And Then There’s Free Speech

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There’s this from Matt Ridley concerning the effect of Internet anonymity on speaking freely.

It is now well known that people are generally accurate and (sometimes embarrassingly) honest about their personalities when profiling themselves on social-networking sites. Patients are willing to be more open about psychiatric symptoms to an automated online doctor than a real one. Pollsters find that people give more honest answers to an online survey than to one conducted by phone.

Ridley traces a path back to our (very distant) forebears.

In many monkeys and apes, face-to-face contact is essentially antagonistic. Staring is a threat.

And

For many primates, face-to-face contact carries a threat. When we’re online, we’re essentially faceless.

It would seem that we’re not bad, we’re just evolved that way.

More on Free Speech

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It would seem that civility is in the ear of the speaker.  The Wichita Eagle mentions, courtesy of those evil Koch brothers, some examples of civility from our Progressive…acquaintances.  Last Thursday, it seems, Charles Koch authorized the release of a large sampling of the emails he, his company, and his employees have been getting over the last year, or so.

Among the incisive, tightly reasoned arguments offered him and his from the civil Left are these:

I hope you all DIE.

You people are ruining our country, and all for $$$.

And an especially cogent pair of correspondences:

Choose your expiration Date, Brothers….

The Koch brothers will DIE!!!!!

These careful insights aren’t limited to the ordinary Left, either.  The NLMSM also rises to the occasion, albeit more…subtly.  In an AP article picked up by The Northwestern from USA Today, we find this:

Wichita Police Lt. Doug Nolte said Friday that the last reports the department had on file from Koch were in 2010 involving a complaint about someone putting signs on his property and a 2009 arrest for trespassing at his house.

Not a word on the nature of this Progressive civility—just had it been (lightly) reported to the authorities.

On the other hand, we have this from none other than Elliot Spitzer.  According to The Daily Caller, in an interview with Bill Maher, he offered this in the context of the free speech rights of a corporation (like Koch Industries, or Time Warner, which owns HBO, which carries “Real Time with Bill Maher”):

Your show is owned by a corporation.  You have a First Amendment right. And so I don’t know how you distinguish between the New York Times editorial page, The Rachel Maddow Show, George [Stephanopoulos]‘s show — all owned by corporations.

The First Amendment shall pass no law abridging the right of speech.

Doesn’t say by anybody. It says speech. I don’t care whose speech it is.

That’s how Progressive civility fits in.

More Affirmative Action Fail

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Here is the Party of Progressives’ paternalistic view of minorities made plain.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) apparently doesn’t think Latinos can succeed on their own—they must have the overt support of the Progressive Know Betters because Latinos are not otherwise capable—they must have affirmative action support.

Here’s what he said about Senator Marco Rubio’s (R, FL) opposition to Mari Carmen Aponte’s nomination for Ambassador to El Salvador.

In Nevada, this woman is seen by the Puerto Rican community, the Hispanic community, as really somebody who is an up-and-rising star. … I just think it’s a mistake for someone who is supposedly representing Hispanic issues to do what [Rubio] has done.

Hmm….  Rubio is supposed to support Aponte because of the color of her skin, and not at all based on her qualifications or the content of her character.  Furthermore, Rubio is not allowed to do what’s done routinely (with some justification) by other Senators—hold up a confirmation as leverage to obtain another goal (in Rubio’s case to try to force the Obama administration to overtly acknowledge Nicaragua’s, et al., enmity toward democracy)—no, the minority (in a couple senses of the word) Senator himself is just supposed to sit quietly and betters have their way.

Many recipients of Progressive race-based affirmative action (excuse my redundancy) support also exposed their addiction to that support: an Orlando, FL community activist, Javier Cuebas said

This is not the first time Sen Rubio has expressed concerns about a Puerto Rican nominee—when he was a candidate, he expressed similar concerns about Judge Sotomayor.  People don’t forget these things. … And remember, Cubans only make up about one-third of the Hispanic population in Florida.

At least Aponte seems to understand the legitimately political (if that’s not an oxymoron) nature of the maneuverings and the lack of place for Progressive racial politics in America.  She emailed Rubio after this latest Progressive tempest, signing it familiarly “Mari Carmen” (Politico says they have a copy of the email):

Thank you very much for all of your support during my confirmation process.  Although the outcome is not what all of us had hoped for—friendships were made and a lot of strength was gathered from the effort. I will forever be grateful for your hard work.

She’s not alone; others also reject Progressive paternalism.  The Executive Director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, Alfonso Aguilar, said that Reid’s remark was “appalling,” and

This blatant attempt at racial identity politics is offensive and condescending to all Latinos.  It’s insulting for Reid and Obama’s minions to imply that all Latinos support a person’s nomination to federal office just because he or she is a fellow Latino.