[HN Gopher] Doomsday Book (2006) [pdf]
___________________________________________________________________
Doomsday Book (2006) [pdf]
Author : Jimmc414
Score : 260 points
Date : 2025-01-07 15:09 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.crisesnotes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.crisesnotes.com)
| jprd wrote:
| I initially thought this was trolling due to the MS Comic Sans
| right up front.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Is that Comic Sans on the second page?
| marcusestes wrote:
| Came here to say the same thing. It's a chilling font choice
| for a document like this.
| morsch wrote:
| It also reads hilariously like a document from the SCP wiki,
| blacked out passages and all.
| baryphonic wrote:
| 2006 was peak "Great Moderation," where there hadn't been any
| serious financial crises since the 80s. The consensus wisdom
| was that many of the policies of the 80s & 90s, particularly
| around inflation and reducing uncertainty, had made financial
| crises almost obsolete.
|
| It seems dark today given that we know the outcome, but I'm
| sure at the time, Comic Sans seemed appropriate for a set of
| tools that they thought likely would never be used. Or maybe
| it indicates a certain hubris undone within about 18 months.
| banku_brougham wrote:
| _Stares in Long Term Capital Management_
| grantsucceeded wrote:
| probably anyone this far in the thread remenbers long
| term capital managment, I did, but couldnt remenber if it
| was in the 80's or 90's. (1998)
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/longtermcapital.asp
| asdff wrote:
| Wasn't 2006 just off the heels of the dot com bubble?
| divbzero wrote:
| I bet they use Comic Sans for nuclear launch codes too.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I guess if you're at the precipice of a financial crisis,
| starting with laughs around the table isn't the worst.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| This seems like some pedestrian financial agreements.
|
| What is the TLDR on why it is called 'Doomsday'?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > The so-called Doomsday Book, an internal document used to
| guide the Federal Reserve's actions during emergencies, has
| long been the subject of intrigue and suspicion. Largely a
| compilation of legal opinions, the book has been a key resource
| for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for decades, allowing
| it to play a unique and oversize role during financial crises.
| No other regional Federal Reserve bank has such a resource.
|
| > The book is a living document that records pivotal decisions
| made during times of financial distress. It played a crucial
| role in then New York Fed President Timothy Geithner's decision
| to rescue Bear Stearns from bankruptcy in 2008.
|
| Economic system failure runbook.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/sun-shines-on-new-york-fed-doom...
| | https://archive.today/YbgG7
|
| https://www.crisesnotes.com/the-new-york-federal-reserves-do...
| tekla wrote:
| Its explained on the first page italicized
|
| The "Doomsday Book" is a compendium of legal opinions, in some
| cases stretching back decades, that explore the legal limits of
| the Federal Reserve in the event of a financial crisis.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Every company has a disaster recovery plan. Seems like
| calling it 'Doomsday', is the question. It seems rather
| dramatic naming for a bank.
| tekla wrote:
| I think the imminent collapse of the US economy is aptly
| named "Doomsday" to the Federal Reserve.
|
| I mean, you bring up a disaster recovery plan for
| companies, but is it REALLY a "disaster"?
| themadturk wrote:
| For the company and its employees, the answer may well be
| "yes."
| cj wrote:
| > The Doomsday Book is intended to help lawyers of the Federal
| Reserve Bank of New York aid their clients in crisis management.
| It was originally distributed to a limited set of lawyers and
| select senior staff members. This has changed with time, as more
| lawyers are drawn into crisis management. Now, all FRBNY lawyers
| receive a copy of the Doomsday Book. Since the Doomsday Book
| seemed more confusing than helpful to non-lawyers, it is no
| longer distributed outside of the Legal Function. However, some
| individuals may have older versions on their shelves, and there
| is nothing wrong with sharing this version with clients.
|
| Page 44 of the PDF has a good overview of what this document is
| intended to be.
|
| Putting "Doomsday book" in the context of crisis management
| explains why this document exists. Basically, they don't want to
| be in the middle of a crisis and have legal uncertainties delay
| their ability to take action.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| It seems to be a misnomer as I can't imagine any 'doomsday'
| scenario where there would still be a functioning judiciary,
| Justice department, or any functioning clients for the FRBNY to
| help.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| I think the fear is not that there is no justice to help
| them.
|
| The point is that when exceptional measures are needed, you
| want to know how far you can go, without it coming back to
| you in the months afterwards.
|
| It's a bit like InfoSec cyber incident playbooks: if customer
| data is being corrupted, can the production server be shut
| down? how bad does it need to be before the downtime no
| longer outweighs the corruption? who can take the decision?
|
| If you don't spell that out in advance, you may find yourself
| in a situation where you lose time unnecessarily.
| myself248 wrote:
| Like the Internet Archive feeling that "oh shit the entire
| society just shut down" in the days after Covid lockdowns
| started, and uncapping their digital lending because they
| were the only "library" you could still visit.
|
| And then getting sued six ways from sunday over it, years
| later when the crisis mood had faded and the help-people-
| any-way-we-can vibes were thoroughly forgotten. Time to
| make sure no good deed goes unpunished!
|
| Yeah. This document makes a LOT of sense.
| grapescheesee wrote:
| WBUR just aired an interview today with Brewster Kahle.
| It would be a very sad day if the Internet Archive
| stopped resolving, or was stopped from benefiting the
| common good.
|
| https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2025/01/07/internet-archive-
| way...
| sneak wrote:
| The self-own that was the IA taking it upon themselves to
| decide that copyright would not be enforced upon them by
| big rightsholders "because COVID" is not a good deed.
|
| It is foolishness masquerading as virtue. I used to be a
| donor, but no more, as this was an unforced error. The IA
| is in danger because the IA management was dumb.
|
| I don't believe in copyright, personally, and I've been
| an avid pirate of every type of media since I got on the
| internet at 9.6kbps, but to think that Big Content won't
| sue whenever and however they can is simply naive.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > The self-own that was the IA taking it upon themselves
| to decide that copyright would not be enforced upon them
| by big rightsholders "because COVID" is not a good deed.
|
| The theory was that the courts would find it to be fair
| use. Which isn't a crazy theory at all because making
| exceptions for exceptional circumstances is exactly the
| sort of things courts do, and fair use is exactly the
| sort of thing that gives them the latitude to do it if
| they want to.
|
| IA's issue is that they're librarians and look at things
| like librarians do. If people lose access to books, is
| that an emergency? It could _sometimes_ be a matter of
| life and death -- people need some information or
| something bad will happen and now they don 't have access
| to it -- but that's kind of abstract and it's not as
| visceral. People understand kicking down a door to
| prevent someone from electrocuting themselves better than
| they understand that the same thing can happen if people
| lose access to the information needed to prevent it. So
| to a librarian, of course that's an emergency.
|
| And then the other side of that is, what are you
| balancing it against? Some temporary copies being made of
| books that libraries all over have already paid for and
| have in their collections, and only for the duration of
| the pandemic? That's not a ridiculous trade off, that's
| completely reasonable. The libraries bought the books and
| the patrons read them, same as it ever was. In a
| temporary emergency, how much does it matter that the
| accounting is completely perfect rather than the
| plausible approximation you get based on assuming that
| before they knew there would be a pandemic, libraries had
| purchased books in proportion to how much demand there
| would be for them? Has it even been proved that a single
| book was simultaneously lent out more times by IA than
| there were copies of it on the shelves in locked down
| libraries everywhere?
|
| That's not a crazy argument. The problem is, it doesn't
| feel like an emergency anymore. Worse, there was a lot of
| overreach during COVID, and many people are now of the
| sense that much of the response was excessive. And then
| you get a conflation between "shutting down every library
| might have been an overreaction" and " _given that
| libraries were forcibly shut down_ , lending books in a
| different way was temporarily justifiable" and the people
| making the second argument get painted with the negative
| sentiment derived from the first by Monday morning
| quarterbacks.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _theory was that the courts would find it to be fair
| use. Which isn 't a crazy theory at all_
|
| If they'd been advancing a test case, they would have
| done what they did and then--when confronted by
| rightsholders--stopped while the courts deliberated. That
| asks the question while managing the downside. Instead,
| IA dialled its rhetoric to eleven, thereby turning what
| could have been a measured legal contest into a bet-the-
| farm Hail Mary.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > If they'd been advancing a test case, they would have
| done what they did and then--when confronted by
| rightsholders--stopped while the courts deliberated.
|
| Consider what would happen if they did that.
|
| First, this was happening during a pandemic. Emergency
| happening right now. If you stop doing it at this point,
| not only do you fail your patrons when they need you,
| you're undermining your own argument that this is
| actually an emergency that justifies doing this.
|
| Second, if you stop, do they even sue you? If they don't,
| you don't even get your test case.
|
| Third, if they do sue you, what does it matter if you
| were doing it for a month vs. a year? If they hit you
| with the absurd fictional damages numbers in some of the
| copyright statutes and you lose, bankrupt is bankrupt.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not only do you fail your patrons when they need you,
| you 're undermining your own argument that this is
| actually an emergency_
|
| Did the emergency argument ever hold legal water? How
| many actual librarians did the IA consult in crafting its
| programme?
|
| > _if you stop, do they even sue you_
|
| Injunction. Or at least, let smarter legal minds weigh
| in. (And actual librarians.)
|
| > _what does it matter if you were doing it for a month
| vs. a year?_
|
| Damages. It also shows goodwill, which could have
| influenced not only judges by IA's allies (who largely
| abandoned it).
|
| IA was arrogant throughout the lawsuit, and it showed in
| their library partners often publicly rebuking them.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Did the emergency argument ever hold legal water?
|
| It's whatever the courts say it is. Fair use is very
| squishy. Nobody knows until there is a case.
|
| > How many actual librarians did the IA consult in
| crafting its programme?
|
| They are actual librarians.
|
| > Injunction.
|
| If you voluntarily stop they don't need to file for an
| injunction, they can just drop the case and then there is
| nothing for you to appeal.
|
| > Damages.
|
| What's the difference between a billion dollars and a
| trillion dollars when you don't have a billion dollars?
|
| > Going straight from controlled digital lending to free
| for all was totally unnecessary when the first hadn't
| been tested.
|
| They'd been doing controlled digital lending for a good
| while and nobody sued them. To get a test case somebody
| has to file a lawsuit. Maybe it shouldn't work that way
| but "courts don't issue advisory opinions" isn't
| something IA made up.
|
| > IA was arrogant throughout the lawsuit, and it showed
| in their library partners often publicly rebuking them.
|
| Issuing a statement that amounts to "please don't sue us"
| isn't really indicative of much other than that they know
| they'd need to budget for a bunch of lawyers if they want
| to get involved and they don't.
| sdwr wrote:
| Yeah, it was a "we want to and think we can get away with
| it" type of thing. It's what they would love to be doing
| 24/7, COVID was just a convenient excuse.
|
| (Publishers can be parasites, but if you're playing with
| the big boys you have to follow the rules)
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| In any tricky situation the conditions under which you're
| judged are a world apart from the conditions under which
| you operate. Just don't be on the "losing" side.
| rtkwe wrote:
| More Doomsday as "potentially existential (in a financial
| system sense) crisis" than a literal Doomsday. It fits
| perfectly into that frame as a compilation of other times the
| Fed has explored the limits of it's powers to address extreme
| situations in the financial system.
|
| It's also unlikely courts etc would completely disappear even
| far into an actual "Doomsday" crisis. Hell the IRS has plans
| in place on how to collect taxes post nuclear apocalypse.
| AdamN wrote:
| Death AND Taxes
| Retric wrote:
| There's levels of Doomsdays. As emotional as people get
| over surface level details of government, there's a long
| way down from a civilization unable to make CPU's before
| the literal stone age.
|
| So sure people hate the IRS, but codified tax collection is
| the single most important function of modern government.
| Without that you don't have private property or free
| markets just warlords arbitrarily seizing property which
| destroys whatever is left of society very quickly.
| rtkwe wrote:
| That's kind of what I'm getting at with the first part of
| my post. Doomsday for the Fed is "major collapse of
| sector(s) the US economy they fail to arrest" or esoteric
| economic woe that requires drastic but relatively novel
| (legally speaking) measures to address. The kind of
| systemic seizing that some of the people who had the
| foresight and money to have made a killing on 2008 but
| didn't because they feared the wholesale collapse would
| happen because they didn't factor in the firehose of
| money that would be directed at the problem.
|
| Complete societal collapse is outside their purview
| because they depend on there to be an economy to manage
| which ceases to meaningfully exist at certain points on
| the Doomsday scale.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Maybe with my limited knowledge I am wrong about this,
| but it seems like "codified tax collection" as it relates
| to private property and free markets, at least in the US,
| is that they designed it to create the illusion of a
| functioning system. In reality it serves special
| interests because they can afford to navigate it's
| complexities, while the general population is held
| hostage to this system. Secondly, income tax money
| doesn't appear to actually go to the places it should,
| like infrastructure, and instead towards unjust wars that
| are waged to democratize(hold-hostage) countries that
| don't play along with capitalism.
|
| I think the tax system, in its current state, is an
| illusion of providing a just system when what it really
| does is turns a country of free people into wage slaves
| working for overlords (people with money).
| pjc50 wrote:
| Think "2008 crisis" rather than actual apocalypse.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book
| jowea wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/28/business/nuclear-war-
| plan...
|
| > It will take something more than a nuclear attack to wipe
| out taxpayers' obligations to the Internal Revenue Service.
|
| > An addition to the Internal Revenue Manual, which is
| supposed to guide the conduct of all I.R.S. employees,
| declares that if the bomb is dropped, ''operations will be
| concentrated on collecting the taxes which will produce the
| greater revenue yield.''
| warner25 wrote:
| One thing that I think I've learned, to my surprise, even
| for most people in uniform on either side, is that much of
| life during wartime is still mostly "business as usual."
|
| I think we all tend to have poorly calibrated mental models
| of this because coverage of war tends to focus on the
| heaviest action and worst of the devastation.
|
| I don't mean to downplay how awful that can be, or how far
| the effects can reverberate (even generations later), but
| like... the vast majority of people still go about their
| daily lives, doing their usual jobs, doing the mundane
| things, even having fun, supply chains and infrastructure
| and institutions seem to be quite resilient, etc. Locally
| and individually, everything can change in an instant in
| combat (even then, most people walk away from that and
| continue their lives), but nationally things can keep
| rolling along as war drags on much more slowly than we all
| might expect or hope.
|
| So I have little doubt that the IRS would keep doing its
| thing, and tax returns would need to be filed (albeit maybe
| with extended deadlines), even in the wake of a nuclear
| attack. I suppose the question is how much do things
| unravel in a scenario of nuclear counter-attack, and
| counter-counter-attack, etc. for which we have no
| historical precedent to think about.
| chillingeffect wrote:
| It depends on how well the country is winning. E.g.
| Ukraine is still quite functional. Palestine is
| approaching a complete collapse.
| goatsi wrote:
| If you are talking about Gaza, there were reports a few
| days ago that Israel is considering cutting back on the
| amount of aid allowed in once Trump is in office,
| claiming that Hamas is still able to fund itself by
| "taxing" aid.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The most important function of a government in wartime is
| revenue collection.
|
| When you consider how the US funded 20+ years of warfare
| post-911, it's both fascinating and terrifying,
| especially when you consider the long term effects of
| "financial meth" in terms of asset bubble, excluding the
| American aristocracy from taxes, and structural deficits.
| jessriedel wrote:
| > Page 44 of the PDF has a good overview of what this document
| is intended to be.
|
| Yes, but unfortunately it doesn't much explain what the
| contents are like. Would be great to get an laymen-readable
| summary of this from an LLM.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Putting "Doomsday book" in the context of crisis management
| explains why this document exists.
|
| Really? They could hardly have picked a worse name; the
| Doomsday Book is, very famously, a register of who owns what.
| It has absolutely nothing to do with emergency response or
| crisis management.
|
| But the document that the name implies it should be, a register
| of who owns what, is not at all an unlikely thing for the
| Federal Reserve Bank to have.
| jjmarr wrote:
| You're thinking of the Domesday Book.
|
| It is admittedly the same word written in Middle English, but
| I think context+spelling is enough to distinguish it.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Som of us haue reuised oure spelynge syns the 1100s.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| Interesting how the replies are assuming "doomsday" means some
| sort of apocalyptic societal collapse instead of acknowledging
| it could nothing more than a figure of speech used amongst
| lawyers at the FRBNY.
|
| This PDF is not the book. It is an introduction/summary of
| changes and a table of contents (TOC). The sample agreements
| are not included. The letter makes clear that FRBNY is actually
| not subject to the FOIA. I wonder if they charged for the
| service.
|
| The presence of these agreements referred to in the TOC
| suggests that after a "doomsday" event, the FRBNY lawyers
| expect that other legal entities will still be entering into
| agreements. One HN comment muses about the lack of a
| functioning judiciary after this "doomsday". But without one
| how would such agreements be enforced. What would be the point
| of providing sample agreements if a doomsday event means
| agreements can no longer be enforced because the mechanism for
| enforcing them no longer exists.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| From the name, I expected a list of the fed's assets similar to
| the more famous Domesday Book. But this is more interesting.
| CrimsonCape wrote:
| "Please note that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (the "New
| York Fed") is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act
| ("FOIA") although it complies with the spirit of FOIA when
| responding to requests of this type."
|
| Isn't it great we have a massive private entity in control of the
| financial system that pleasantly reminds you that it is not
| accountable to government laws, and by extension is not
| accountable to the people ("A government of the people")
| sambaumann wrote:
| that same independence is the reason it's not subject to the
| political whims of whoever is in power at a given time, which
| is important for the long term health of the economy. "The
| people" did decide this - as congress gave the fed that
| independence
| aaomidi wrote:
| The independence could still have stipulations that require
| FOIA.
| npoc wrote:
| Sounds good until you discover that its the people who own
| the fed that are really in power.
|
| Everyone should read at least the first few chapters of "The
| Creature from Jekyll Island" to understand how much money
| (power) they have.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _until you discover that its the people who own the fed
| that are really in power_
|
| This is nonsense. The President and Congress control the
| Fed. And nobody can knowledgeably claim, today, that its
| banking members (legally, its shareholders) are more
| powerful than America's non-bank financial institutions (
| _e.g._ Blackrock or Brookfield).
|
| The greatest boon our billionaire class could inherit is a
| politically-controlled Fed. It's why one of any autocrat's
| first moves is bringing the central bank under their
| control.
| npoc wrote:
| It's not nonsense. The banking system printed every
| dollar out of thin air and is charging interest on every
| single one (giving a cut to government). For decades and
| decades.
|
| I made a post earlier detailing the mechanism they use to
| extract the wealth from us:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42621878
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _banking system printed every dollar out of thin air
| and is charging interest on every single one (giving a
| cut to government)_
|
| This is also nonsense, though less so.
|
| Money is created by private banks through lending. The
| government gets a cut, but that comes through taxation.
| Money creation is complicated, but it seems like every
| year someone watches a YouTube video about inflation and
| deduces, with zero further thought, that it must be a
| conspiracy.
| npoc wrote:
| > Money is created by private banks through lending.
|
| Exactly. Every single dollar was created from thin air,
| as a "loan".
|
| > it seems like every year someone watches a YouTube
| video about inflation and deduces, with zero further
| thought, that it must be a conspiracy.
|
| I've been studying and researching this for years.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Every single dollar was created from thin air, as a
| "loan"_
|
| Not quite. Minted currency isn't created from a loan.
| Neither is fiscal spending.
|
| On the other side of the spectrum, money is destroyed
| through taxation (by the state) and repayment of debts
| and defaults (privately).
|
| The monetary hypothesis of income inequality is overly
| simplistic. It supposes our tax, trade and funding
| policies are all dictated by monetary policy, which is
| obviously nonsense. (That or our tax, trade and social
| spending policies have no effect on inequality. Which is
| obviously stupid.)
|
| It _is_ an easily-digested hypothesis. We like those,
| particularly when the alternative is reading lots of
| arcane monetary financial texts.
| licnep wrote:
| Fiscal spending is still created as a loan though since
| the government has to sell bonds to finance it, no?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Fiscal spending is still created as a loan though
| since the government has to sell bonds to finance it, no_
|
| Monetarily speaking, the government creates the money
| when it spends it. The loan then (and optionally) removes
| a similar amount of money from the system.
|
| This is an enormous power, so we try to legally limit the
| government in how it can do this. (If we removed the
| Fed's independence and put it under the Treasury, the
| Treasury could just add numbers to the bank accounts of
| the government's employees and vendors. This is analogous
| to its minting power. We separate the Treasury and the
| Fed in part to fracture this power.)
|
| I forgot one more creation/destruction mechanism above:
| the Fed's open-market operations. When the Fed buys
| assets, it creates money. When it sells them, it destroys
| money.
| licnep wrote:
| Thanks for the clarification, if you have any pointers to
| learn more about this I'd be interested to check it out.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Oldie but a goodie: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/med
| ia/boe/files/quarterly-...
| gnatman wrote:
| >> The banking system printed every dollar out of thin
| air
|
| what is the alternative exactly? money created by god?
|
| like no duh the economy & money system was created out of
| thin air. we created all this shit out of thin air.
| icehawk wrote:
| > _The banking system printed every dollar out of thin
| air_ [...]
|
| What banking system doesn't do this?
|
| Ones with steps in between don't count.
| toast0 wrote:
| Plenty of banking systems use currency with names other
| than dollars.
|
| Brazil's banking system prints _real_ s out of thin air.
| But that's better, because they're real, says so in the
| name :)
| 4fterd4rk wrote:
| You can't just append "out of thin air" to standard
| monetary policy and pretend you're making some kind of
| argument. Everything you describe in the comment you
| linked to is sophomore level economics. I don't
| understand your point. There is nothing sketchy about it.
| Do you want us back on the gold standard? That's an awful
| idea.
| phyzix5761 wrote:
| I'm curious which country you reside in where congress does
| the will of the people because I'm in the US and that's
| definitely not true here.
|
| EDIT: Getting a lot of hate on this comment so allow me to
| clarify what I meant.
|
| In the US we have a Constitutional Republic meaning elected
| representatives write the laws. People are not voting
| directly on laws and issues (on a federal level). The parent
| comment said that "The People decided this" but that's not an
| accurate statement. Congress decided this regardless of what
| people actually wanted. In fact, the public was largely
| divided on whether they wanted a Federal reserve during this
| time.
| 9question1 wrote:
| You greatly overestimate the quality of the will of the
| people. Just because you don't like certain outcomes
| because they are stupid doesn't mean that those outcomes
| aren't what people wanted. Democratic institutions are a
| much more accurate way of reflecting the will of the people
| than most other attempts to measure that, for many reasons
| including the existence of people who don't respond to
| surveys but vote.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Democratic institutions can be subverted with first past
| the post voting systems and the illusion of choice
| amongst the most vocal and well funded parties
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| You know what the technical term for a subverted
| democracy is? "Democracy."
|
| Also known as, "Five people with an IQ of 90 outvoting
| four people with an IQ of 110," or "One person in Iowa
| canceling two votes in California."
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Eh, the (growing) insanity of the electoral college is
| not a necessary feature of a democracy.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| It is as far as this one's concerned.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| No, not necessary, just (currently) Constitutionally
| mandated. Those are not the same thing.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Your options for getting rid of it are Congressional
| ratification with an overwhelming majority (LOL), a
| Constitutional convention (a horror too frightening to
| contemplate, given the people who would be involved), or
| guns. Which do you prefer?
| llamaimperative wrote:
| I'm not suggesting getting rid of it, stop with the
| hysterics. I'm saying it's not a necessary feature of a
| democracy, as you suggested in your original post.
|
| It is a highly idiosyncratic design decision in _one_
| democracy. It is not at all functionally necessary to
| America 's system, and it's certainly not necessary to
| any other, as proven by its conspicuous absence from said
| democratic systems.
|
| Five stupid people outvoting four dumb people _is_ a
| natural outcome in every democratic system. One person
| outvoting two based on geographic location _is not_ a
| natural outcome in every democratic system.
|
| It's not that hard to understand if you take off your
| ideology blinkers for a moment and read the words in
| front of you.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _It 's not that hard to understand if you take off your
| ideology blinkers for a moment and read the words in
| front of you._
|
| If you have a point to make, make it.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| It's also a recipe for a tyranny of the majority and a
| horrible form of government.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| This is the wrong take. The system reflects the will of
| the people who the system deems important. The average
| person wants higher wages, shorter hours and cheaper cost
| of living w/r/t rent, food, fuel and health. Congress is
| reflecting none of those desires right now because they
| serves the needs of the oligarchic selectorate that has
| been funding unrestricted class warfare against regular
| people for the last 20 years.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _average person wants higher wages, shorter hours and
| cheaper cost of living w /r/t rent, food, fuel and
| health. Congress is reflecting none of those desires_
|
| The average voter does _not_ uniformly express these
| preferences.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Duh? Like, by definition, an average doesn't reflect
| uniform expression. The people who don't want those
| things are a minority, but they are getting their way,
| because the system reflects the desires of the elites,
| not the desires of the average.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _people who don 't want that are a minority, but they
| are getting their way_
|
| They're the majority. Almost every voter puts pocketbook
| issues _near_ the top of their list, but not so far up
| that they're willing to be civically active about it
| _unless_ it's a crisis. Herego, we spend most of our non-
| crisis time on non-pocketbook issues.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Almost every voter puts pocketbook issues near the top
| of their list, but not so far up that they're willing to
| be civically active about it unless it's a crisis._
|
| We're not in a crisis now, but people voted in the last
| national election as if we were, because Fox News told
| them that we were.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _because Fox News told them that we were_
|
| This is my problem with the "elites in control"
| hypothesis. It seems to rely on voters' power existing,
| but being circumvented because said voters are too stupid
| to handle it.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Well, that's pretty much the size of it, isn't it?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> This is my problem with the "elites in control"
| hypothesis. It seems to rely on voters' power existing,
| but being circumvented because said voters are too stupid
| to handle it._
|
| You are correct (except that it need only be a subset of
| voters).
|
| Now that you've done a good job of elaborating on the
| hypothesis, what exactly is your problem with it?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _what exactly is your problem with it?_
|
| It doesn't work. Its testable predictions preclude a good
| amount of extant politics, including practically all
| populism. Elites the world over are losing in democracies
| because they presupposed, from afar, that they knew what
| their constituents wanted. Voters' interests are complex,
| and they can't be so easily bought.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| That is a huuugely presumptive interpretation.
|
| Here's another _possible_ interpretation: our information
| environment makes people extremely vulnerable to actual
| bullshit in massive volume.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Here's another possible interpretation: our
| information environment makes people extremely vulnerable
| to actual bullshit in massive volume_
|
| That is also true. People get angry and then misdirect
| it. But the anger is real, and it filters up through the
| political system when the valves aren't clogged. They
| aren't, not anywhere in the West. Voters across the West
| have essentially begun a wholesale replacement of their
| stable of elites. That is _not_ what happens in an
| oligarchic system.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| That is _absolutely_ how oligarchic systems supplant
| democracies.
|
| Hitler was elected, Orban was elected, Bukele was
| elected.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Hitler was elected, Orban was elected, Bukele was
| elected_
|
| None of them emerged from oligarchic political systems.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| If your argument is "the US was not a pure oligarchy 4,
| 8, or 12 years ago", sure.
|
| I don't think that's what people are pointing out.
| immibis wrote:
| And Putin and the first supreme leader of North Korea.
| Democracies can turn into dictatorships quickly. But
| don't worry - _it can 't happen here._
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> That is not what happens in an oligarchic system._
|
| The person USAns just voted in is literally an oligarch,
| as is his co-president, and he has indicated that he will
| populate his cabinet and advisory board with still more
| oligarchs. His "inauguration" slush fund has already
| received hundreds of millions of dollars from other
| oligarchs to secure their place in the new oligarchy*
|
| _*: Pure or otherwise_
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _person USAns just voted in is literally an oligarch,
| as is his co-president, and he has indicated that he will
| populate his cabinet with still more oligarchs_
|
| America is tending towards an oligarchic system. (This is
| a history of weak democracies, historically, and a reason
| we were founded as a republic and not pure democracy.)
| That doesn't prove it currently is one. Trump's election
| is largely about replacing the technocratic and cultural
| elite with a commercial one.
| nico wrote:
| > America is tending towards an oligarchic system. (This
| is a history of weak democracies, historically, and a
| reason we were founded as a republic and not pure
| democracy.) That doesn't prove it currently is one
|
| Maybe that doesn't. But this study does:
|
| > Princeton University study: Public opinion has "near-
| zero" impact on U.S. law.
|
| > One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the
| opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America
| have a "statistically non-significant impact," economic
| elites, business interests, and people who can afford
| lobbyists still carry major influence
|
| Source: https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
|
| The study is from 2004. I'd say things have gotten a lot
| more "oligarchic" in the last 20 years, and seems like it
| might get even worse in the next few years
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> Its testable predictions preclude a good amount of
| extant politics, including practically all populism._
|
| How so?
|
| _> Elites the world over are losing in democracies
| because they presupposed, from afar, that they knew what
| their constituents wanted_
|
| Elites the world over are _winning_ in democracies (take
| the US for example), which could feed into the
| hypothesis. Indeed, nonzero voters of these elites were
| easily bought.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Elites the world over are losing in democracies because
| they presupposed, from afar, that they knew what their
| constituents wanted._
|
| ... or perhaps because you 've misidentified the
| "elites."
|
| _Voters ' interests are complex, and they can't be so
| easily bought._
|
| No need to buy cattle you already own. You just herd
| them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _perhaps because you 've misidentified the "elites."_
|
| If the elites are constantly changing then the 'elites'
| being in power is about as threatening as the 'people'
| holding it.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _If the elites are constantly changing_
|
| Honestly I don't think there's a rivalry among equals in
| play. I think the previous "elites" slacked off on the
| job. What's happening now looks less like a transfer of
| power than a vacuum being filled.
|
| Regardless, it is the height of absurdity to argue that
| the "elites" aren't in charge now. A New York billionaire
| teamed up with the world's wealthiest man and the
| country's most influential cable news network to buy the
| Presidency, and the rest are now lining up to pay
| tribute.
|
| The other "elites," to the extent there are any, are
| short on ambition, short on cash, and short on media
| reach.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the previous "elites" slacked off on the job. What's
| happening now looks less like a transfer of power than a
| vacuum being filled_
|
| True. But this is how _all_ depositions go. When that
| process is blocked is when the process stops being
| peaceful.
|
| > _it is the height of absurdity to argue that the
| "elites" aren't in charge now_
|
| _Some_ elites are always going to be in charge. That 's
| almost tautology. The point is there is no _the_ elites
| who were in charge and are now.
|
| > _other "elites," to the extent there are any, are short
| on ambition, short on cash, and short on media reach_
|
| And/or. Plenty have some of those but not all, or at too
| stupid to know how to wield it. Point remains: we have an
| amorphous elite with contrasting interests who are
| constantly fighting because power is fractured among
| them.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| No, they aren't the majority. The elites that the system
| actually serves have successfully ignited a culture war
| that splits the average people on which issues are
| driving the economic problems. The overwhelming majority
| of Americans want higher wages and cheaper cost of
| living, they just can't agree on how to get there (by
| design).
|
| Divide et impera.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _overwhelming majority of Americans want higher wages
| and cheaper cost of living, they just can 't agree on how
| to get there (by design)_
|
| By design? Or because it's hard? You really think the
| sole thing keeping us from having more for less is
| conspiracy?
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Not conspiracy - culture wars. Conspiracy is a part of
| that, but racial equality, immigration and abortion have
| all been wielded to great effect. It's certainly easier
| to create disruption than consensus, but the money is
| clearly backing disruption.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _racial equality, immigration and abortion have all
| been wielded to great effect_
|
| There is plenty of evidence happiness is, in part,
| relative. I'm not convinced there aren't voters who would
| rather be a little poorer than better off but not as much
| as that _other_ group.
|
| > _easier to create disruption than consensus, but the
| money is clearly backing disruption_
|
| I'm moderately wealthy. Split time between New York and
| Wyoming. It's certainly wild that a bunch of voters in
| rural Pennsylvania feel strongly about _lowering_ my
| taxes so long as it pisses off some liberals. If I had
| more resources and were more self centred, I could see
| myself encouraging that.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I'd say the average voter actively wants at least 1 of
| these and has no problem with the others.
| nico wrote:
| This is just false
|
| > Study: Congress literally doesn't care what you think
|
| > Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion
| surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up
| becoming law. In other words, they compared what the
| public wanted to what the government actually did. What
| they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90%
| of Americans have essentially no impact at all.
|
| https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
|
| There are several articles about the study
| toolz wrote:
| I think you're over-representing just how well opinion
| surveys can represent the actual will of the people.
|
| To put this in a less politicized analogy, everyone will
| tell you they want to be rich, but how many people are
| willing to make sacrifices to become rich? It turns out
| many rich people today are rich because they didn't have
| to make very many sacrifices, while most everyone,
| including minimum wage employees, can become a
| millionaire. Mathematically it's not all that complex.
|
| People will tell you what they want with some
| internalized model that isn't representative of the
| realistic trade-offs that would have to be made. So in
| effect what people say isn't based in the reality of what
| they actually want.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Another interpretation: when you sum a bunch of opinions
| you end up with a result that doesn't look particularly
| like _any_ of the inputs, and certainly not a large
| portion of them.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Do you realize this study uses completely subjective
| post-hoc assessment of what industry lobby's wanted?
| phyzix5761 wrote:
| > Democratic institutions are a much more accurate way of
| reflecting the will of the people
|
| You're right but that's not what we have in the US. We
| have a Constitutional Republic. Elected representatives
| write the laws. People are not voting directly on laws
| and issues (on a federal level). I'm not saying we should
| change it but for the parent comment to say that "The
| People decided this" is not an accurate statement.
|
| That's all I meant with my comment.
| derektank wrote:
| If members of Congress are not acting in the interests of
| their constituents, their constituents have the power to
| vote them out. The decision not to is what's known as "the
| consent of the governed". Perhaps that's not exactly the
| same as "the will of the people" but it's close enough for
| casual usage.
| nico wrote:
| Vote them out and elect who?
|
| Some other member from one of the two parties, who will
| continue to make decisions mostly for their rich donors?
|
| > Princeton University study: Public opinion has "near-
| zero" impact on U.S. law.
|
| > One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the
| opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America
| have a "statistically non-significant impact," economic
| elites, business interests, and people who can afford
| lobbyists still carry major influence.
|
| https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Public opinion has "near-zero" impact on U.S. law_
|
| Re-run that within voting jurisdictions. What that study
| largely seems to reference is that local representation
| is, in part, a divide and conquer mechanism.
| daedrdev wrote:
| in 2024 recently rejected numerous alternative voting
| systems that would have allowed third party candidates to
| have a fighting chance
| clucas wrote:
| What's your best example of something the US Congress has
| done, or failed to do, that was contrary to the will of the
| people?
| phyzix5761 wrote:
| Here are a few examples of times congress passed
| laws/acts which went against the will of the people:
|
| The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) The Alien and Sedition Acts
| (1798) The Prohibition Act (1919) The Vietnam War Draft
| (1960s) The Troubled Asset Relief Program (2008)
| clucas wrote:
| OK, the only modern example on your list is TARP. I think
| the strength of your examples does not justify the
| strength of your statement.
|
| Actually, I just read your update, you've changed from
| making a bold (and, in my view, wrong) statement about
| how government is not responsive to the will of the
| people, to a fairly boring technical point about how a
| representative democracy works. I have no idea if you're
| just doing a motte and bailey or if you were never trying
| to make a bold claim in the first place...
|
| I'll just leave my piece here, in any case: I believe
| that the US system of government actually works really
| well, and _in general_ we tend to get laws and
| regulations that are based on the broad consensus of a
| very diverse electorate. This is a good thing. In my
| opinion, when most people complain about how the
| government doesn 't work for the people, what they
| actually don't like is that a lot of the country
| disagrees with them, and that disagreement is reflected
| in our government.
|
| But, maybe I'm wrong and there's some other system we can
| come up with that will keep a vast and diverse nation
| hanging together prosperously for another 250 years.
| Shrug.
| phyzix5761 wrote:
| Some more modern examples:
|
| Gun Control Legislation (e.g., Background Checks, 2013)
|
| After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, polls
| showed overwhelming public support (over 80%) for
| universal background checks. Congress failed to pass
| significant gun control measures despite this broad
| consensus.
|
| Net Neutrality Repeal (2017)
|
| Public opinion polls showed strong bipartisan support for
| net neutrality regulations. Despite this, Congress and
| the FCC rolled back these protections, prioritizing
| telecom industry interests.
|
| Affordable Care Act (ACA) Repeal Attempts (2017)
|
| Repeated attempts by Congress to repeal the ACA
| (Obamacare) were made despite consistent public support
| for key provisions like protections for pre-existing
| conditions.
|
| Stock Trading by Members of Congress
|
| Polls show overwhelming public support (around 70-75%)
| for banning members of Congress from trading individual
| stocks due to conflict-of-interest concerns. Yet, no
| significant legislation has passed to address this issue.
| clucas wrote:
| Gun control - fair point, this is one where I think an
| ambitious legislator could really make a name for
| themselves by pushing for it. I suspect that there would
| be more pushback from the electorate than is indicated in
| the polling, but who knows. This is your best point, I'll
| be really interested to see how public opinion actually
| breaks if concrete legislation is introduced.
|
| Net Neutrality - maybe? My read on it is that it's just
| too wonky of any issue for most people to actually care
| that much about, and polling can't really tell us much
| about how the electorate would lean if they actually
| studied it - phrasing of the survey question can probably
| skew things strongly one way or the other. But, maybe
| that's just a cop-out.
|
| ACA - doesn't this strengthen _my_ argument? It 's
| popular enough that even when the Republicans had a
| trifecta they still couldn't repeal it, despite running
| on "repeal and replace"... Maybe if they had actually had
| a replacement ready to go, they actually would have
| succeeded... but they couldn't reach consensus on a
| replacement, so it didn't happen.
|
| Stock trading by members of Congress - the jury is still
| out on this one... when did this push start, during
| Biden's term? If (1) public opinion stays strongly in
| favor of it during Trump's current term but (2) we still
| don't see any legislation during the next presidential
| term... then I would call this a mark in your favor, but
| not until then.
|
| Overall, I'm still not buying your argument that our
| government is unresponsive to the will of the people.
| It's certainly not a perfect reflection of the
| electorate, but _generally_ when we build consensus, we
| get things done... it 's just that consensus is really
| hard to come by these days.
|
| Have a good one my friend, thank you for engaging, I
| think this stuff is really important. :)
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Difficult to say what the will of the people was on TARP
| as it changed week to week depending on what the stock
| market had done that day.
|
| But three days later they were for it before they were
| against it:
|
| https://www.astrid-
| online.it/static/upload/protected/GALL/GA...
|
| On the draft, that wasn't a new law. Selective Service
| was probably a 1940s law. A majority didn't think the war
| was a bad idea until 1968 and a majority supported Nixon
| pretty much to the end regardless of the reimagining that
| hippies were ever a majority.
|
| https://time.com/archive/6875220/a-time-louis-harris-
| poll-th...
| immibis wrote:
| The Gaza genocide?
| clucas wrote:
| What policy proposal related to the Israel-Palestine
| conflict do you think would actually be agreed to by more
| than 50% of the US electorate?
| CrimsonCape wrote:
| I don't know enough about the subject to assign "blame",
| however I assume it would be the Fed's obligation to blame
| the political whims of Congress for the massive inflation of
| national debt, wouldn't it? The Fed only creates money in
| response to Congress, correct?
| tanaros wrote:
| > Isn't it great we have a massive private entity in control of
| the financial system that pleasantly reminds you that it is not
| accountable to government laws, and by extension is not
| accountable to the people ("A government of the people")
|
| While I appreciate your desire for more accountability in our
| financial system, I feel this framing can be interpreted as
| needlessly alarmist. Although the NY Fed is not subject to FOIA
| --- because, as written, it excludes them --- they are of
| course subject to US law in general. Congress (and, by
| extension, the people) may pass laws to regulate them as they
| wish.
| ActionHank wrote:
| Are they privately held or part of the state apparatus
| though?
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Yes.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are they privately held or part of the state apparatus
| though?_
|
| The Fed is part of the state. Unambiguously.
|
| FRB _New York_ is its interface with the private sector,
| analogous to Fannie Mae or the Tennessee Valley Authority.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| When I search Google with your question "NY Fed privately
| held or part of the state apparatus", the first answer is
| from the NY Fed explaining this:
| https://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/more-about-what-we-
| do
|
| The third result is from the St Louis Fed, a non-technical
| explanation of this https://www.stlouisfed.org/in-plain-
| english/who-owns-the-fed....
| hiatus wrote:
| 404 on your St. Louis link.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Thank you, it is missing a trailing "s", it was a bad
| copy/paste on my part. The corrected link is
| https://www.stlouisfed.org/in-plain-english/who-owns-the-
| fed.... Still really easy for anyone to find the
| information if they were inclined.
| skissane wrote:
| I think the Federal Reserve Banks are essentially
| government agencies.
|
| I know US courts have ruled that they are "private
| corporations". However, that's really a technical legal
| definition of "private" vs "government" under US law.
|
| In a broader, globally applicable sense of
| "government"-versus-"private": they were created by
| Congress, they have special legal powers granted to them by
| Congress. Although they have private "shareholders" -
| nationally chartered banks are required by law to join one
| of the Federal Reserve Banks, and state chartered banks are
| permitted to if they desire and meet certain conditions -
| these private shareholders don't have the kind of power
| that shareholders have in a genuine private corporation.
| Although they get to vote for seats on the board, they
| don't get to set strategic direction or make major
| decisions, those are dictated to them from above. A body
| created by the government which you are legally required to
| join isn't really "private" just because it gives you some
| rather limited say in its running.
|
| It is actually a bit like "corporatism" in fascist Italy -
| in which the government created "corporations" (a bit like
| trade associations) for each industry, which the employers
| in that industry legally had to join, and in which they
| could vote for its governing board, but in practice the
| government called the shots - except just for banks.
| immibis wrote:
| Congress can pass laws to regulate Elon Musk, too, but it
| doesn't stop anyone from being alarmed about fake news.
| rcxdude wrote:
| It's not accountable to government laws which _target the
| government_. Congress could pass a law to make such entities
| (or indeed, all corporations or people) subject to the act, but
| they 've decided not to.
| ano-ther wrote:
| It's accountable to Congress:
|
| https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_14986.htm
|
| > The Federal Reserve System is not "owned" by anyone. The
| Federal Reserve was created in 1913 by the Federal Reserve Act
| to serve as the nation's central bank. The Board of Governors
| in Washington, D.C., is an agency of the federal government and
| reports to and is directly accountable to the Congress.
|
| > Some observers mistakenly consider the Federal Reserve to be
| a private entity because the Reserve Banks are organized
| similarly to private corporations. For instance, each of the 12
| Reserve Banks operates within its own particular geographic
| area, or District, of the United States, and each is separately
| incorporated and has its own board of directors. Commercial
| banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold stock
| in their District's Reserve Bank. However, owning Reserve Bank
| stock is quite different from owning stock in a private
| company. The Reserve Banks are not operated for profit, and
| ownership of a certain amount of stock is, by law, a condition
| of membership in the System. In fact, the Reserve Banks are
| required by law to transfer net earnings to the U.S. Treasury,
| after providing for all necessary expenses of the Reserve
| Banks, legally required dividend payments, and maintaining a
| limited balance in a surplus fund.
| yesco wrote:
| >In fact, the Reserve Banks are required by law to transfer
| net earnings to the U.S. Treasury, after providing for all
| necessary expenses of the Reserve Banks, legally required
| dividend payments, and maintaining a limited balance in a
| surplus fund.
|
| Going purely off memory here, I recall audits implying this
| may not actually be happening as legally required. It was
| back when Ron Paul was making a big deal about it though, I
| can't remember the specifics so I'm bringing it up to invite
| discussion.
| beambot wrote:
| If it's paying dividends, then it has de facto owners.
| Also, are there explicit constraints on "limited" balances
| -- eg fraction of money supply or fraction of GDP?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If it 's paying dividends, then it has de facto
| owners_
|
| No, it means the FRBs have legal shareholders. (The Fed
| _per se_ doesn 't pay dividends.) The Treasury pays
| interest, that doesn't mean it's owned by bondholders.
|
| We could easily re-write statute so the Fed doesn't pay
| dividends (it would become interest on reserves), they're
| an anachronism from the days when the Fed had to compete
| to induce membership. But that wouldn't do anything
| practical and it also wouldn't satisfy the conspiracy
| theorists, so it's not really in anyone's interest to
| bother with.
|
| > _are there explicit constraints on "limited" balances_
|
| No, though it's maintained at an amount equal to banks'
| paid-in capital [1]. Broadly speaking, it's another
| anachronism.
|
| [1] https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-02-939.pdf
| yieldcrv wrote:
| just because a contract pays dividends doesn't make the
| bearers the owners
|
| and this entire discussion about "government vs private"
| just completely neglects the widely used concept of
| orphaned entities, as if they don't exist
|
| false dilemma
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I recall audits implying this may not actually be
| happening as legally required_
|
| There is zero evidence the Fed hasn't been paying the
| Treasury properly and a _lot_ of audit evidence it has
| been.
| amyames wrote:
| Fed hasn't paid Treasury a dime since August 2022:
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RESPPLLOPNWW
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The Fed is cutting its balance sheet and thus losing
| money [1]. (When the Fed wants to lower rates it buys
| bonds, thus raising their price. That creates accounting
| profits. When it wants to prop rates up it sells bonds;
| that depresses their price leading to accounting losses.)
|
| The Fed isn't pocketing change owed to the Treasury. It
| hasn't properly owed anything on account of having shrunk
| its balance sheet by trillions of dollars [2].
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/fed-says-official-
| net-neg...
|
| [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WALCL
| daedrdev wrote:
| Thats because it lost money. It paid all its profit to
| the treasury, which was less than zero as raising rates
| causes it to loose its income
| immibis wrote:
| Congress doesn't seem to be very accountable to the people,
| so the chain seems to stop there.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| 11 incumbents lost their seats in 2024... that's
| accountability.
| hanniabu wrote:
| That's not accountability, it's populism
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Americans continue to get exactly what they vote for, and
| have for at least 150 years. If Americans don't understand
| that, they should read a book and learn.
| ausbah wrote:
| Americans didn't vote equally for the Senate
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The Fed is subject to FOIA [1]. (Within limits [2].) FRB _New
| York_ is not.
|
| If you want to know about monetary policy, that's FOIA'able. If
| you want to FOIA the FRB's trades so you can front run them,
| that's not allowed. (Similarly, you can FOIA the Department of
| Education. You can't FOIA Sally Mae.)
|
| [1] https://www.federalreserve.gov/foia/about_foia.htm
|
| [2] https://www.federalreserve.gov/foia/exemptions.htm
| dustyventure wrote:
| All agencies have process for handling FOIA requests for
| issues that are often of a more serious nature than some data
| possibly arriving fresh enough for front running..
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Congress literally exempted "information that concerns the
| supervision of financial institutions" from FOIA [1].
|
| [1] https://www.foia.gov/faq.html
| dustyventure wrote:
| So the other 8 types of exemptions must exempt virtually
| every agency with a meaningful role, but wait, no, they
| don't. Agencies are expected to judge every request
| against these exemptions.
| koolba wrote:
| > If you want to FOIA the FRB's trades so you can front run
| them, that's not allowed.
|
| As if anything that operates at the speed of FOIA would be
| useful for front running. Maybe if it was for some future
| action, but even that would be months out of date when you
| finally get a response.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _As if anything that operates at the speed of FOIA would
| be useful for front running_
|
| What are you basing this on? There was a scandal several
| years ago when the order of transactions protocol leaked.
| If you now that X transaction systematically happens after
| Y, and you see X, you know Y is coming.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Yes, it is great. The US economy has been the strongest in the
| world for a century and the USD is a global currency. The
| system has been incredibly successful, in spite of being
| periodically run by idiots.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| The Judicial branch of the American government is exempt from
| FOIA. Isn't it great we have a hold 1/3 of our government that
| thinks they are exempt from us plebes oversight? They don't
| even hold themselves to the 'although it complies with the
| spirit of FOIA'. That seems way more concerning than the FED.
| qingcharles wrote:
| This isn't the whole story (from a serial FOIA person
| myself). The judicial branch is generally excluded from FOIA
| laws (it shouldn't be), but it is subject to disclosure under
| the First Amendment and the common law. While that doesn't
| provide any statutory wins (e.g. must disclose in X days
| etc), it does allow you to sue if say a court doesn't provide
| you with records you want.
|
| see e.g. _Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc._ (1978):
| recognizing the common law right of access to judicial
| records but allowed the court to deny access when interests
| such as privacy, national security, or fair trial rights
| outweigh the public 's interest.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| The fed of course is accountable to laws passed by the
| government but not laws about the government (since it is not a
| part of the government).
|
| It is a wonderful thing that it is independent from the
| government, and history has shown, across nations, that
| political independence of central banks is necessary to control
| the money supply well. Political leaders are more interested in
| short-term issues and have repeatedly demonstrated an inability
| to responsibly manage money supply issues.
| emh68 wrote:
| Much like Facebook and Twitter spy on American citizens for the
| Federal government.
| asdff wrote:
| Aren't these positions nominated by the president and confirmed
| by the senate? That is still a government of the people through
| representation. If you had people confirm each and every
| position in the federal government the system would collapse.
| Clubber wrote:
| >Isn't it great we have a massive private entity in control of
| the financial system that pleasantly reminds you that it is not
| accountable to government laws, and by extension is not
| accountable to the people ("A government of the people")
|
| We have two massive private entities in control of the entire
| government: our two political parties.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| It's ok. It has made a half-hearted promise to appear to behave
| according to the spirit of the law, when doing so provides good
| public relations and otherwise suits its needs.
| bix6 wrote:
| Wild to me that they can choose which FOIA's to answer. Anybody
| had one denied?
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| They're not "the goobermint", so not FOIAble.
| bix6 wrote:
| Which is crazy as a quasi government agency supervised by a
| government agency.
| jfengel wrote:
| Yeah, it's weird. More separation of powers stuff. The
| intent is to be insulated from politics but not entirely
| divorced from the will of the people. As Calvin said, a
| good compromise leaves everyone mad.
| ynniv wrote:
| The people have no will at the Fed
| jfengel wrote:
| The Fed chair is appointed by the President and confirmed
| by the Senate. It's arm's length, to be sure, but I don't
| think most people would want too much more direct
| involvement.
| duped wrote:
| The people, generally, have no understanding of monetary
| policy either in theory or practice. It's a good thing
| the Fed isn't at the beck and call of the people.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Not really. It's similar to a public authority. Owned and
| governed by the federal government, but somewhat insulated
| from the day to day.
|
| It makes sense. Just as you don't want the state sweeping
| bridge tolls into the governments general fund, you don't
| want the whims of the executive futzing with money.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Congress literally exempted "information that concerns the
| supervision of financial institutions" from FOIA [1].
|
| [1] https://www.foia.gov/faq.html
| th4t1sW13rd wrote:
| The fact that one of the most powerful financial institutions in
| the world maintains a "Doomsday Book" of emergency legal
| procedures, named after the historic record of English lands
| commissioned by William the Conqueror, suggests they take very
| seriously the possibility of catastrophic financial crises
| requiring extraordinary measures. The document states explicitly
| that "The Doomsday Book is not, and can never be a finished
| product" - implying an ongoing need to prepare for new types of
| financial emergencies.
|
| This seems both novel and somewhat concerning, as it indicates
| the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for worst-case
| scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial system. The
| very existence and continuous updating of such a manual provides
| a window into how the Fed thinks about and prepares for potential
| crises.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _somewhat concerning, as it indicates the Federal Reserve
| anticipates and prepares for worst-case scenarios that could
| severely disrupt the financial system_
|
| It's concerning a regulator and lender of last resort considers
| what happens at the precipice of last resorts?
| ndileas wrote:
| Would you prefer that they would not prepare for unusual
| circumstances? This is what any serious organization does when
| there are real stakes. Smart people sit down and gather
| information, think about likely scenarios, and write a
| playbook, updated over time. Seems like your response is a knee
| jerk entirely based on the optics of the name.
|
| The fed responding wrongly to a crisis, even a minor one, could
| cause enormous pain and suffering -- think famine. I don't have
| the expertise or patience to actually evaluate the contents of
| the document, but they are definitely doing the right kind of
| thing here.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > it indicates the Federal Reserve anticipates and prepares for
| worst-case scenarios that could severely disrupt the financial
| system
|
| Yes! That's the point! You don't want to arrive at a worst-case
| scenario unprepared!
|
| The US military has all sorts of files and plans on bizarre and
| implausible scenarios, mostly as intellectual exercises ("if we
| wanted to invade Canada, how would we do it?"). That doesn't
| imply anything about their likelihood.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| nowadays it feels like plans "how to invade Canada" no longer
| feel so hilarious :(
| Etheryte wrote:
| Markets are both cyclical and ever-changing, so I don't see
| what's surprising about new types of emergencies coming up as
| the times change. The way we slice and dice assets and claims
| today is very different from how it used to be done just a few
| decades ago. The markets are a living breathing thing.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think some concern is warranted, given financial crisis are
| real threats the the system and consumer.
|
| The consumer can do little to prevent such a crisis, but
| awareness and modest preparation are a rational response.
|
| I think it is pretty analogous to fema preparations for
| catastrophies. A homeowner can't stop a pandemics or hurricane.
| They can have an emergency kit.
| epa wrote:
| Page 2, comic sans
| 0xEF wrote:
| Someone should be held accountable for this.
|
| Nevermind the redacted stuff. I want to know who to blame.
| wil421 wrote:
| Blame the interns!
| grantsucceeded wrote:
| Blame for using comic sans ? :)
| ngriffiths wrote:
| This was my first reaction. Why? Trying to downplay the
| seriousness of the topic or something? Is it ever used in
| documents like this?
| joe_the_user wrote:
| I read it more as "here's a page I wrote and printed-out on
| my nephew's computer during the holidays" unserious rather
| "I'm joking serious". It's not a page in book of collected
| opinions Fed official keep, it's the cover page for the
| public release. Like, "this old thing? It's kind of out-of-
| date and unimportant but you can take a look if you want".
|
| IE, there's a little effort to hide the significance of the
| document "in plain sight" here.
| desireco42 wrote:
| Fascinating to see how the Fed prepares for potential systemic
| financial crises with this 'Doomsday Book'. The name cleverly
| references the medieval Domesday Book, adapting that record-
| keeping concept to modern financial emergency preparedness.
|
| It's essentially a sophisticated crisis management playbook,
| similar to tech companies' incident response plans but with much
| higher stakes. The legal and operational complexity revealed here
| is truly mind-blowing
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Good lord what is up with that PDF? Half of it seems to be
| (badly) OCRd, some pages look like a TIFF with 50dpi or lower
| resolution... that's not what I'd expect to get returned in a
| FOIA request.
| Bengalilol wrote:
| I certainly would have thought this 'book' could encompass the
| Great Depression (1929 and on). It is the most defined 'doomsday'
| we should all learn from and act upon. I bet it is hard for
| anyone to learn from a distant past. Then I understood it was
| very law centric and that nothing was made to prevent a blackout,
| but mainly to escape any legal process that could interfere with
| any crisis management.
|
| But my main focus was on the use of the Comic Sans font on page
| 1.
| divbzero wrote:
| Comic Sans was definitely my first reaction too.
| motohagiography wrote:
| having read and understood this doc seems like the bar for having
| an opinion about the role of the Fed and whether it should be
| "ended," "audited," or nationalized, given these crisis responses
| are a list of the essential functions for whatever might replace
| it.
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