How to bring central bankers to heel? Ask them some questions

 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of the London Telegraph is a world-class financial journalist and his commentary today, appended here, analyzing the venality of the Federal Reserve is probably as incisive as anything in the financial press. But he poses and then fails to answer the question he concludes his commentary with: "How can we bring these central bankers to heel?"

Nothing will bring central bankers to heel faster than peppering them with detailed questions about their surreptitious market interventions -- particularly in regard to gold. Such questions are obvious and they abound. Here are some suggestions:

http://www.gata.org/node/10229

Like all mainstream financial journalists, Evans-Pritchard declines to pose any questions to central bankers, perhaps on the assumption -- a good one -- that they'll never answer, or never answer candidly. (As the Fed's former vice chairman, Alan Blinder, remarked on national television in the United States a couple of decades ago, "The last duty of a central banker is to tell the public the truth.")

But that doesn't mean that the public can't be informed by itemizing the questions that central bankers refuse to answer. Indeed, the full range of hidden central bank policy can be well outlined by itemizing these questions and trumpeting the subversion of democracy, the subversion Evans-Pritchard acknowledges at the end of his commentary.

So come on, Mr. E-P. Leaven your commentary with some journalism. Call up some central banks and ask them to describe the full range of their market interventions today, this week, this month, this year, and in the last 10 years. Start with gold, where the evidence already has been compiled for you in the most conscientious detail:

http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21

When they "no comment" you, report their unaccountability and the evidence of those interventions. Then seek comment from elected officials. And then ask your question about democracy.