Remember when the Federal Reserve and general public were blasting companies like AIG for going on retreats and holding conferences at luxury resorts? Well, on October 29, it was reported that the Fed has held its conferences at "exotic high-prices locales." The Washington Post reported on October 28, that the San Francisco Fed hosted a conference at the "spectacular Bacara Resort and Spa" in Santa Barbara, where it paid $300 a night for the rooms -- an off-season price. Perhaps we should be praising the frugal nature of the Fed, as suites can run $2,000 during the peak season. Ben Bernanke attended this conference, which has drawn the ire of some. This conference was followed by a conference held by the Boston Fed at an Inn that charges up to $320 a night for regular rooms and nearly two grand a night for suites.
Is this a major misstep? Honestly, no. However, it looks a bit hypocritical for the Fed and government to blast companies that received TARP money for their lavish spending and go to luxury resorts themselves. Of course, the Fed did not use taxpayer money for the conferences, so some may argue no harm, no foul. My argument is that the appearance of impropriety could cause some to assume that there really was something amiss.
The good thing is that attendees actually pay their own way, and more often than not the organizers recover all of the event's costs. Knee-jerk reactions to this news could spark a bit of outrage, when outrage isn't really needed.
Would it have been better to have held these conferences at the Motel 6 in Santa Barbara rather than a luxury resort? Perhaps -- it definitely would have cost the attendees less, but I'm assuming that the San Francisco and Boston Feds felt the lavish surroundings were needed.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2009 @ 1:19PM
thedude said...
Maybe you can educate me on this but if the fed didn't use taxpayer money for these events please explain:
A- Who attended the meetings
B- How are their salaries paid
C - Where does the money for their salaries come from
I admit as much as I have been trying to learn about "the Fed" it all seems quite byzantine to me. The more I know the more I know I don't know. As far as I can tell even though it isn't funded directly by tax dollars (or maybe it is) the money for operations does come from the taxpayers or account holders or... or ... what ?
10-30-2009 @ 1:25PM
thedude said...
As an aside I don't think $300.00 per night is in anyway excessive for a hotel room in either the cities mentioned.
These hotels have the necessary infrastructure to manage conferences like this and if these conferences were critically needed (probable) and productive (doubful) then there is no need for backlash/outrage.
The $$ billion spent for congressional operations is amuch bigger waste of money.
10-30-2009 @ 2:53PM
MC2 said...
Most people don't know that the Federal Reserve Bank is a PRIVATELY OWNED BANK. It was illegally set up along with the IRS in 1913 in the middle of the night on "Christmas Eve" by the richest men in the world John D. Rockefeller, J.P.Morgan and a few others. That is why Obama's entire cabinet is made up of FEDERAL RESERVE FLUNKIES. Although, obama has set up a shawdow government that is made up of Marxist Criminals like Van Jones who just got fired after being exposed, but their are dozens more where he came from working in the administration full time. Back to the Federal Reserve that actually owns and runs America. YES I SAID THAT THEY OWN AND RUN AMERICA. It controls the money and it has their name on on it, "Federal Reserve Note" and they control most politicians as well except for Reagan as he was his own man and they did not like that, so with their control of the country forced him to take Bush Sr. as his VP. Anyway, the Federal Reserve does whatever it wants as it owns the country and has since 1913. Everi cent of the income tax collected goes to the Federal Reserve and that is why income tax was created. That is why we have so many other taxes and fees on everything as income tax is not used for the general fund for running this country. PLEASE GOOGLE THIS
10-30-2009 @ 4:37PM
william lindblad said...
MC2-Read up on J.P. Morgan and the banks(1909) - than you will know why we have the Fed.
It's pseudo government. It's private, but government sponsored, manages the cash flow and reports to it's sponsor, that's Congress.
Should it be holding meetings at lavish resorts - NO.
In doing it is setting a bad example and making a statement that is contrary to all recent government actions. Given the state of the economy a little austerity would be order. This is just another blunder, perhaps no on the scale of AIG, but a blunder nonetheless. I should think that the corporate portion of the U.S., all of our elected representatives and the heads of all respective government agencies should get a copy of Victor Hugo's Tale of Two cities and take up reading, and pay special attention to this character Madame LaFarge.