The Federal Reserve Bank is a Free Market Institution?

Tonight on PBS, there was some very strong praise for Bernake for his creativity in handling the financial situation we are in. Essentially, the speaker talked about how virtually anything is going to be on the table. Anything. How many junk mortgages will the Fed be guaranteeing once this is all over? How many bad bank investments will have been supported? It's unclear, but if tonight's praise for Bernake is any indicator, we are going to see some unexpected behaviors from the Fed. In the same discussion, it was said "Yeah, free market conservatives are essentially running the Fed." This was a very frustrating thing to here, because it was such a clear lie. I do not know what the word conservative means anymore, so I won't address that issue. However, "free market" cannot honestly be used to describe a bank whose sole purpose for existing is to prevent the free market from operating. I must definitely wonder if the expert on the panel really thought about what he was saying. If he was, the only acceptable definition of "conservative" in this sentence could be "the opposite of."

- Allan