Posted on 11/17/2010 6:31:32 AM PST by WebFocus
Problem solved.
'Scapegoating' would be to blame him for someone else's actions. Remind me again who it was that signed off on expanding the money supply by $2.6 trillion over the last 20 months to purchase treasury bonds that will immediately go down in value for the sole purpose of financing runaway deficit spending.
LEAVE BEN ALONE!!!!!! *sob*
I do not think that we ever received a simple explanation of that so-called financial crisis. I suspect that we would have been better off doing nothing rather than giving $3 trillion dollars to persons unknown.
We do not know what really happened, what policy or persons are to blame, and what can be done to prevent such crises? Was it part of the Utopian concept of One-World Government policy that has a 100% failure rate? ...or what?
“I was told to download the YouTube video not by some dopey trader during a slow day in the markets, but by a CEO in New York City who runs one of the biggest financial firms in the world. Bernanke’s senior staff has seen it too, I’m told, though a spokesman wouldn’t say whether the chairman has.”
For everyone who has their eyes gloss over when people talk “QE2”, watch this cartoon!
So let’s review The Ben Bernank’s track record:
Didn’t see the housing bubble. Denied it existed.
Didn’t see the tangled web of financial derivatives. Still doesn’t have a set of ‘nads to regulate these useless instruments.
QE 1.0 didn’t work much. The banks are still loaded with crap paper. The Fed won’t tell (or even require) the truth be told about bank balance sheets.
This isn’t an example of competence.
We have an institutional problem, not a personnel one.
We need an institution whose only job is to maintain a STABLE currency and who’s incentives are perfectly aligned to achieving their goal.
What tools we give them is less important than the clear unambiguous objective and space to work.
The Ben Bernank.
Prof. Mark Hendrickson of Grove City College (one of the few economists of the Austrian School ) tells it like it is.
Originally, Congress created the Fed with the stated mission was to smooth out the disruptive ups and downs of the business cycle, to stabilize banking system, and to protect the viability of the U.S. dollar.
But under Nixon and the Democratic Congress of 1970, the 1970 amendments to the Federal Reserve Act state that the Fed should “promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.” These goals are misguided and unattainable:
A) The premise that the central bank can promote employment is erroneous. It is based on a mythical academic theory called the Phillips curve that posits a supposed tradeoff between inflation and employment. Unemployment is fundamentally a price problem, not a monetary problem; therefore, unemployment can only be cured by the presence of a free market in wages. Employment is not the responsibility of a central bank.
B) Central bank tampering with interest rates is the fundamental cause of the artificial boom/bust cycle; thus, the Fed or any successor institution should forever cease from tampering with interest rates.
C) Finally, “stable prices” are a chimera. Markets need flexibility in prices to balance supply and demand.
IN OTHER WORDS, WE EITHER HAVE TO RETHINK THE MISSION OF THE FED (i.e. BRING BACK ITs ORIGINAL MISSION), OR SCRAP IT ALL TOGETHER.
Bernanke should be in federal prison on death row.
Let’s not forget that he was one of the lying schemers who scared George Bush and congress into pushing TARP through in the fall of 2008.
Recall how he and Paulson lied to the President and to the country that they had to have TARP funds passed immediately to purchase “Troubled Assets”. Then, once TARP passed, they admitted that it was a scam and that they knew they would not be spending the money on “Troubled Assets”.
Then, Bernanke was also caught lying when he and Paulson told the country they needed $900 million approved for the Stimulus bill. Once the money was approved they admited that they pulled that number out of their butts - they just wanted a number large enough to scare the public and politicians into acting.
As for beoing competent - just look at the damage he has done.
I wish some economic genius would explain why it is better to “monetize” the debt than to simply charge a tariff on imported goods?
I think I know how Madison and Jefferson would answer the question....
He did succeed in fighting off the increasing calls from Congress to audit the Fed. The audit bill was building up steam with more and more co-sponsors and then it just disappeared. I have a feeling that it was similar to a natural gas plumber who replumbed my gas meter told me that he wasn’t going to do a full system pressure check because he knew the 40 year old gas line in my yard would fail and I would then have to replace it. I think Bernanke showed some Congressional leaders just how rotten the Fed’s books were and claimed the system would collapse if anyone looked too closely at it, so they decided to turn away and shut their eyes.
Isn’t the TARP money slowly being paid off by the banks?
I thought some of the bigger banks have already paid their TARP debts off...
I like Charlie, but Bernanke and Greenspan are legitimate targets of derision. If you caught any of their riveting testimony on CSPAN about their role in the financial meltdown, it amounted to "duh, I didn't see it coming and none of the crashes are my (the Fed's) fault."
With such brilliant economic scholars at the helm and hordes of indispensable geniuses like TurboTax Timmy G running the FOMC and NY Fed, now the Treasury - I can see why they were at a huge disadvantage to little peons like me, who don't have an Ivy League degree, but saw each of the bubbles coming a mile away.
That’s the one. I personally think it is very funny- painfully accurate but funny.
Now why couldn’t we let GM file bankruptcy?
Pray for America
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