Questions for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that will probably be not asked during his congressional testimony

Can bailouts perpetuate problems instead of solve them?

Are taxes rising or falling if workers, savers and investors
are exposed to inflationary capital confiscation?

Did the Federal Reserve not disclose how much some financial institutions
received during the financial crisis?

Should economic plans designed to fix large, complex predicaments,
rely on many who created and profited from the initial problems,
who may not have wanted to identify and confront them
when they were small, relatively unknown and lucrative?

Have American legislators and the Federal Reserve
been abusing the dollar’s status as a reserve currency
to avoid overtly raising domestic taxation
by covertly taxing US dollar denominated assets like oil and food,
by over-printing money?

Who owns the Federal Reserve?

If the government habitually bails out overextended businesses,
is it good business to overextend?

Did the Federal Reserve
expose taxpayers to hundreds of billions of dollars of potential losses
without congressional approval, when it allowed some financial institutions
to exchange low quality mortgage-backed securities for AAA Treasuries?

Has the Federal Reserve ever been independently audited?

If the government selectively subsidizes some businesses,
could those looking to purchase homes, cars and energy
be obliged to pay higher prices and taxes?

Why is it called the Federal Reserve,
if it’s not federal and there’re no reserves?

Did some negatively influence economic performance and consumer behavior
through legislation, budget appropriation, regulation and taxation
to benefit a few at the expense of many?

Are some who reaped exorbitant Wall Street bonuses
when mark to market accounting created gains
among those who lobbied for the accounting method to be suspended
as valuations retarded compensation?

Should shareholder and debt investors reap profits
from money borrowed from a nation’s children,
to save companies responsible for creating the need to be bailed out?

Did some stabilize financial markets in the short term
to defend legacies and financial interests, regardless of long term consequences?

Why did the Federal Reserve not disclose
how much some financial institutions received during the financial crisis?

At what point do bailouts do more harm than good?

Is the government penalizing well run businesses
by rewarding poorly managed firms with taxpayer money?

Is the United States of America the "Land of the Free", if the nation's monetary policy
is performed by an unelected privately owned entity who acts above the law?

If more money was withdrawn than invested in US equity products during 2009,
coincident with record new and secondary stock offerings,
amid the least amount of corporate stock buybacks
and the most insider selling in recent history, where did the assets needed
to recover trillions of US stock market capitalization
and borrowings by the US Treasury come from?

Have some accounting methods inflated financial valuations,
artificially increasing stakeholder and insider worth,
by allowing publicly traded entities to report and/or promote
what some may consider to be disingenuous information,
to justify what could be fictitiously supported prices?

If on-balance sheet assets grew by 200% from 1992-2007
as off-balance sheet assets grew 1,518%,
leaving balance sheet assets 15.9 times larger than off-balance sheet assets (2007),
did Financial Accounting Standards Board rules provide opportunities
for some financial firms to hide losses that should have been disclosed?

Why would who want regulatory authorities to adopt accounting rules
allowing assets of questionable valuation
potentially obscuring what could be higher levels of leverage and/or liability?

Why have most financial industry and government funded economists
considered warnings of financial bubbles unproven or exaggerated until afterward?

If a nation prints more money,
like cutting a large pizza into 16 slices instead of 8,
is each slice worth less?

What if the pizza shrinks while the number of slices rise?

Why did the Roman Empire reduce currency size and silver content
to increase the quantity of money during war against Hannibal?

Does earn today, spend tomorrow,
conflict with borrow to spend today and hope to earn enough tomorrow,
or that someone else does?

Why did the Legal Tender Act of 1862 authorize paper money,
not exchangeable for gold or silver, to finance the Civil War without raising taxes?

If Germany’s central bank suspended the right
to redeem gold backed Reichsmarks during World War I,
and 170 Reichsmarks bought an ounce of gold in January 1919,
why did an ounce of gold cost 87,000,000,000,000 Reichsmarks in November 1923?

Why did John F. Kennedy attempt to bypass the Federal Reserve in 1963
by authorizing silver backed Treasury Certificates?

Why did the US stop exchanging paper dollars for gold and silver in 1971,
after printing more without raising taxes
to pay for Vietnam and socialized benefit programs?

If the US utilizes deficit spending and monetary inflation to stimulate economic growth,
should inflation rise even faster in countries with currency pegs
who have to print even more money to keep up with the falling value of the US dollar?

If some consider insanity to be doing the same thing repetitively,
expecting different outcomes,
and the Federal Reserve contributed to the financial crisis
by creating short term growth at the expense of long term stability
after increasing money supplies after 9/11
while reducing short term interest rates from 6.5% in 2001 to 1% in 2003,
why would who want to repeat the same strategies after 2008?

If foreign manufacturing and commodity exporters
exchange US dollars received for goods with their central banks
for increasing supplies of local currency,
and an effect of emerging economies printing too much money
causes local prices to rise,
is there a correlation between the US dollar and inflation in emerging economies,
and should the US dollar relatively strengthen
as the quantity of less developed currencies expands faster?

If the developed world is engaged in widespread fiat money creation
did many emerging economies get stuck with IOUs that are now worth less?

Is current economic growth dependant on increasing debt creation?

If there’s less than $45 billion in Vault Cash,
and 20 million people wanted to withdraw $10,000 each at the same time
from about $6 trillion in savings deposits, where would the $200 billion come from?

If Total Savings Deposits rose about $4 trillion since 2000
and Vault Cash increased less than $15 billion,
where’s the money?

If there were $744,000,000,000 US dollars in 1971,
and $10,298,000,000,000 before the Federal Reserve stopped publicly counting,
did America acquire present want and sacrifice future need
by creating an over-abundant currency supply?

Should financial institutions who sold or invested in toxic debt
obtain special treatment protecting them from receivership?

If taxpayer intervention didn’t reduce competitive disadvantages
should taxpayers continue to subsidize failed/morally corrupt business models?

Are some who reaped exorbitant Wall Street bonuses
when mark to market accounting created gains
among those who lobbied for the accounting method to be suspended,
as valuations retarded compensation?

Did some economic and political leaders
bail themselves and their compatriots out of their own mistakes,
by pledging trillions of debt and newly created money,
knowing the consequences would be handed down to the unaware
of following generations?

Did some stabilize financial markets in the short term
to defend political legacies and financial interests,
regardless of long term consequences?

Is a Keynesian or Austrian economic path more ethical?

What should happen to economies
in which elders consume more than their children’s inheritance?

Could unpunished unethical business practices
rewarded by government capital injections short of nationalization,
provide incentives for excessive risk taking?

At what point do those who promote and/or vote for ever increasing sums
of government backed debt to finance what may not be necessities
bequeath an unsustainable burden
on the future incomes of the community’s young?

Could many who believe the government
should pledge their children’s future income
to prevent the failure of insolvent businesses
be indirectly advocating a political system other than capitalistic democracy?

If Bernard Madoff distributed money received from new investors to older investors
until there wasn’t enough money to continue,
does Social Security operate under the same structure with mandatory participation?

If business’s are required to honestly report financial information,
and some assets and liabilities are not clearly included,
could some contrived inaccuracies violate the spirit of law?

If the post financial crisis recovery stalls,
should the world’s central banks and government step in again,
or should we be allowed to correct what many believe are artificial imbalances?

If there was $11,909,828,000,000 of Total Public debt on 9/30/2009,
and $13,561,622,000,000 9/30/2010,
how could fiscal 2010’s reported Federal Deficit be only $1.293 trillion
if Total Debt increased by more than $1.651 trillion?

Is it justifiable for a nations elders
to promise themselves tens of trillions of unfunded benefits,
like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and state level obligations,
for future generations to pay for?

If Social Security taxes were increased in 1983
to ease the burden of a smaller generation
tasked with providing benefits to a larger number of longer living elders,
why would elected leaders borrow and spend the surplus?

If there are at least 15,000 professional American Economists,
and less than 1% foresaw the financial crisis,
should many financial industry and government paid prognosticators
be relied on for honesty concerning national finances?