How to do Parliamentary Questions ; where did the bailout money go?

The illustrative cartoon is from the Korea Times.

To British people, the United States Congress is not the obvious place to go to see and to hear parliamentary debate. Committees usually are portrayed, possibly because of the excerpts we see, as panels of grandstanding 'blowhards' whose questions normally last longer than many speeches; debate is usually a term for the rehearsal of gost-written prepared speeches.

The truth is that Congress in some ways is better at oversight and at eliciting the truth when it wants from the American civil service and executive than any body in Europe. It can be ferocious. It's just that most of the time, its members are part of the same cosy Washington consensus that restricts such moments, or confines them to the outer limits of the media when they are reported at all. Most of the time they don't ask the obvious questions and do not bother about the most interesting answers.

I was very struck by the masterful interrogation of the Federal Reserve auditor, Inspector-general Elizabeth Coleman, by Representative Alan Grayson from Orlando, which I have posted below.

Very calmly, and in a measured way, Representative Grayson--who is to the left of me, but who has done a great deal pursuing corrupt military procurement that is a menace to troops--asks whether anyone has checked where the trillions the federal reserve has been dispensing in market operations have gone.

It's a simple question. He also asks, whether anyone is investigating the bail-outs, and whether Inspector General Coleman has jurisdiction to do so.

The answers--and Ms Coleman is clearly a very competent woman--seem to me to get more evasive and flustered as Representative Grayson goes on. They also suggest that Ms Coleman does not know and cannot find out where the money is going in detail. The trillions are off the balance sheet, apparently, and beyond her purview.

It may be that the Federal Reserve's watchdogs are being overwhelmed by the number of banks in trouble. I do hope that none of that money is being laundered in a banking market notorious for the sophisticated ways in which Iran and North Korea can manipulate it.

Right.

That's OK then.

Here is information about emigration to New Zealand or Argentina, should any of my American readers want it.