As it was said on the Naked Capitalism blog entry pertaining to this testimony, “Bernanke basically stonewalls and refuses to offer reasonable explanations. Not sure if he is treating the Congress as stupid or not entitled to know, but he backs himself into a real whopper with his non-defense defense (see 2:55 to 3:20).”
In answer to the Congressman’s question about who gave the Federal Reserve the authority to lend a half a trillion dollars to foreigners, Bernanke responds that it was enacted in the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Basically what he’s saying is we can do what we want, lend money to whomever we please, and all this without any true approval from the Senate, which is exactly what has been happening since the fall and even before that.
Basically, when you get down to it, if you are of the persuasion that we’ve just recently lost our economic rights, you’re mistaken. We lost those rights almost a century ago through the groundwork that was laid in the Federal Reserve Act. It gave power to this super bank, or Bank of banks, who could then later use that power in any way it deemed fit. Bernanke’s rebuttals make that clear. They are acting without the authority of the people, in contradiction of the Constitution.