As just about no-one outside the Beltway knows, publication of the transcripts of Federal Reserve Board meetings are always made public ... only it is always five years after the fact! (Nothing strange or suspicious in that! Every board of directors withholds from their shareholders what they've done until 5-years later! Don't they? Well, if they're Enron or Worldcomm or the Casa Nostra, I guess perhaps they do!)

So, here we are today wiping away the cobwebs of Tri-Lateral web building that goes back to 2006. and what do we learn? 

In an entire year of meetings, filling hundreds of pages of just-released transcripts, the members of the Federal Open Market Committee referred only once to the United States Constitution. That one reference to our national Policies & Procedures Manual, the same one which gives Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value, was made by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Mr. Jeffrey Lacker.

In a discussion of future inflation, he stated that “as a matter of public accountability in a constitutional democracy, we owe it to the citizens of the United States to tell them this simple and yet very important implication of how we conduct monetary policy, if only to make the use of retirement-planning software easier.”

Then comes this notation: “[Laughter].”

Why aren't you laughing?

During this same 12 month period five years ago, according to reporters for The New York Sun, in the hundreds of pages of discussion of monetary policy, the governors of the Fed mentioned “gold” only three times and “silver” only once. 

I guess they didn't want to muddy the waters of monetary policy by discussing real money. It may confuse those who believe in paper and electronic entries and other forms of fiat currency. Can't have that - particularly if that knowledge may jeopardize your job.  

Gotta love 'em 'cause it's still against the law to hunt 'em!