Chris Hedges really lays it on the line about our current situation. Of course this video is edited, but Robert Reich might just as well be sitting there dumbfounded.

In order to pick apart John Oliver’s illogical rant against Jill Stein, I want to focus on specific pieces of his illogic.

John Oliver is right that the Fed does not take marching orders from the President. He is also exactly right on why that is a good thing.

However, just because Congress made the Fed an independent entity within the Federal government (see previous post Who owns the Federal Reserve?), this does not mean that they are forbidden from doing something the President suggests when they think the suggestion is a good idea. For that matter, they can take suggestions from people who are not President, if the suggestion is a good one.

For those who erroneously think the Fed is “owned” by private banks, they might only be right in so far as the Fed does take advice from private bankers. So if the Fed can take advice from private bankers even though the Fed is an independent entity of the federal government, they can equally take advice from the President if they choose to do so. So Jill Stein would have to make the case to the Fed that writing off student debt would be a good idea for the Fed to carry out its general mandates set by Congress. Even if she is not President, she could try to make the case to the Fed.

I doubt very much that Congress intended to refuse to allow the Fed to do something because somebody in another branch of the government thought of it first. Where would be the sense in that?