News this month has been rather sporadic in topic, with Bernard Madoff’s fraud coming to a close (with a guilty plea) late in the month, the main interest has been in legitimacy of financial markets — AIG, the Federal Reserve, and more. Additionally, our publication of one of the greatest in-depth analyses of Hillary Clinton’s moves since her appointment as Barack Obama’s Secretary of State attracted quite a flood of attention.

Ron Paul Introduces ‘Federal Reserve Transparency Act’ (March 1st, 2009) — not surprisingly, the most popular story of the month was published near the beginning of the month — a short discussion broke out about the merits and need for a proper auditing system and the necessity of transparency in the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve. With some economists, particularly those of the Austrian and more libertarian-leaning schools citing central banking as the cause of much economic trouble (some going as far as suggesting the entire system is a carefully orchestrated scam), many, including Ron Paul are calling for change in the way the system reports and is subject to audit.

Hillary Clinton: Achievements Thus Far (March 5th, 2009) — when even Clinton’s personal website fails to list her own accomplishments, someone needs to do it, and evidently, she has been quite busy. The Secretary of State has traveled around the world in just her first few weeks, making her presence well-known to the international community.

SEC Freezes Assets of Bruce Friedman, Real Estate Fraud (March 5th, 2009) — following the Madoff excitement, quite a range of other fraudulent activities have been unveiled including a number of Ponzi schemes, and this particular story with Bruce Friedman reportedly stealing over $200 million from senior citizens across the United States, claiming to invest their funds in real estate, but in fact diverting it for his own pleasure.

Cramer Responds to Stewart’s Claims of Incompetence (March 12th, 2009) and Hanna: Stewart Misses the Point (March 16th, 2009) — Ana started off coverage of the drama with a carefully researched attack on some historical faults Jim Cramer may have been responsible for — particularly the “ethically dubious” (to use Stewart’s phrase) manipulation of the market. Of course, Jon Stewart’s possibly canonical attack on Jim Cramer on his comedy show, The Daily Show sparked a whole riot of activity.

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