A rare photo of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke not loaning half the GDP at .01%
I am willing to accept a modicum of secrecy in my US government. If the pillars of our democracy rest on a certain amount of secret alien dissection and Chinese cyberwar, I’ll go along. But one of those pillars is consent of the governed, and I cannot consent to stuff I don’t know about. A little-r republican system—in which people vote or don’t vote for various representatives based partly on what they do in office—does not work when we’re not sure what our government is doing. Call me Judy Garland, but I also believe that our elected leaders behave a little more scrupulously when they know the American people are watching. Secrecy protects Them from Us, and I personally am a longtime subscriber to the adage that government should fear the people and not the other way around. It’s Friday, as far as we know, and today’s link roundup is full of stories about things we should have known about earlier. Frankly, it’s harrowing. But before we get started, I think you need to watch this video.