Posted on 11/12/2010 5:10:16 AM PST by maggief
The Federal Reserve’s decision to pump $600 billion into the economy has further politicized the central bank and brought it into conflict with resurgent House Republicans.
The attacks and counter-attacks have further complicated life for Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve’s chairman who narrowly won a second term earlier this year after a tough Senate debate.
Bernanke was appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, but he appears to have few friends in a House Republican conference that views him with suspicion.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/11/09/bush-mccains-mistake/
Mr. Bush recalls that on Sept. 18, 2008, three days after Lehman Brothers Holdings declared bankuptcy and two days after the government made an $85 billion loan to American International Group, he met with Mr. Paulson, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and announced that “this is no longer a case-by-case deal. We tried to stem the tide, but the problem is deeper than we thought. This is systemic.”
Thanks for the link. What too many people in Bush’s administration (and others in the GOP and elsewhere) failed to consider is that just because it’s ‘systemic’, doesn’t mean it wasn’t orchestrated.
Lloyd Blankfein is happy......he got rid of a major competitor, Lehman Bros. Now he is doing “God’s work” as he calls it ;-)
Dems are loving that the Fed / Bernanke are the focus of GOP attacks - Barney Frank is once again moving his finger in the direction opposite of where the skeletons are buried (CRA / "home ownership society" / Fannie-Freddie-FHA-HUD / Carter-Clinton-Andrew Cuomo-Barack Obama-Barney Frank-Christopher Dodd-Franklin Raines-Jamie Gorelick-etc-etc) and Republicans are following its every turn. He tested that with the "Republican repeal of Glass-Steagall was the reason for financial meltdown" and it was sad to see how many people were losing focus and buying it, too.
We should stop reflexively helping make Bernanke / the Fed a scapegoat as "the root of all financial evil" - they didn't create the debt and deficit spending or the policy of "competitive devaluation" of USD$ of the last 10 years, the politicians in Congress and White House did.
Bernanke is just the messenger of the bad news, and is actually trying to keep the economy afloat by not repeating the mistakes of 1930's Great Depression and now the two "Lost Decades" of Japan, Inc. Let's not engage in "shooting the messenger"
Here's what Bernanke / the Fed are trying to do, faced with and despite the reckless, irresponsible borrowing and spending sprre of the fiscal policies of last decade, especially in its second half:
To see what Bernanke is trying to do to prevent double dip and asset deflation death spiral, follow the link inside this post:
"http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2624051/posts?page=22#22" - FR, 2010 November 10
How many times in life have we been involved in something and not aware of the mind games until we're looking back on the situation.
Now that Beck is bringing the entire fiasco to the light, hopefully some of the people who have been sucked in will remove themselves from the situation and turn on him. The paragraph yesterday explaining how he evades US law was very enlightening.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2626002/posts?page=1
... monetary policy has suddenly become a turkey. In ordinary times, nobody has much of an opinion on monetary policy -- beyond Fed staffers, wonks and professional bond investors. For heated discussion on the finer points, you have to tune into CNBC or sift through impenetrable papers at academic conferences.
But these days, monetary policy is lighting up Facebook and talk radio. In a recent speech, Sarah Palin showed she's a Mama Grizzly Bear, not a Mama Grizzly Bull. "All this pump priming will come at a serious price," she said, complaining about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's latest plans to lower interest rates and boost the economy ..."The weak dollar -- a direct result of the Fed's decision to dump more dollars onto the market -- is pushing oil prices upward."
Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, piled on. "With all due respect, U.S. policy is clueless." When President Obama arrived in India, his host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, heartily endorsed Bernanke's latest gambit. "Anything that would stimulate the underlying growth and policies of entrepreneurship in the United States would help the cause of global prosperity."
What's going on? This is monetary policy, not something vital to the future of the world, like, say, who gets kicked off "Dancing with the Stars." Having exhausted its ability to lower short-term interest rates, the Federal Reserve is acting to lower longer-term interest rates by buying assets like Treasury bonds. The central bank is making money available on easier terms by conjuring up and deploying quantities of cash -- which is why they call it quantitative easing. Given some of the actions the Fed has taken in the past two years, this is pretty tame stuff.
So why is it raising hackles from Wasilla to Wittenberg? Three reasons. (Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Agreed. The CRA is the root of the evil, not "de-regulation".
I hope Boehner-McConnell can see what's going on and agree on strategy.
It won't be easy because so many conservatives have swallowed lies about the financial system.
I’ll give it an objective read, but I’m afraid that my opinion of Bernanke is pretty firm and dismal. He comes across as a brown nosing bureaucrat..a ‘Wesley Mouch’ type character(i.e. Atlas Shrugged). Thanks for the link.
Ut, oh --- “God’s work”---- that rings a bell.
Keep in mind, that ex-Ohaha COS Rahm Emanuel was getting paid by G/S AT THE SAME TIME he worked for Clinton......paid to (gag) "make introductions." He is VERY close to G/S.
Now Rahm was beatified as the architect of the pre-Obama Congressional takeover....am amazing feat. HOW'D HE DO THAT? Rahm had Dems run in solid Repub districts duping voters by campaigning as "true believers."
MIDTERM AFTERMATH All----I said ALL----of those freshmen Congressmen Rahm got in are now G-O-N-E.
NOTE that when Obama put Rahm in as COS---Rahm's first move was to takeover the US Treasury---an unprecedented move. Wall Street operator Rahm Emanuel also put his brother, Dr Zeke, in charge of Medicare/Aid billions and O/Care trillions. The Emanuels are sitting pretty on piles of US tax dollars stashed offshore.
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DID GANGSTER GOVERNMENT SCAM TRILLIONS USING THE MADOFF MO? Ponzi Madoff created a supersecret labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and financial entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth......with assets and businesses in multiple places overseas that hid thievery, money launderering and tax evasion.
"Professor" Obama surrounded himself with Wall Street shrewdies---like Chief Shrewdie Rahmn Emanuel. Wall Street knows how to make money disappear faster than a cream puff at a Weight Watcher weigh-in. Imagine the wasted trillions...... tick tock, tick tock.....
SJB posted that Dean Koontz stated that at least $70 BILLION has been stolen by the Obama administration.
Only $70B? The Ovomiton gangsters looted the Treasury of trillions---under the pretext of "saving" the economy. The Ovomitons went to work, looting and pillaging, as soon as they hit Washington. The phony trillions dollar bailout schemes were perfect vehicles for government fraud, kickbacks, money laundering, and tax evasion.
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Ponzi king Madoff must be in awe of the "audacity" of these govt criminals who took a page out of fraudster Bernie's Playbook. Madoff's Ponzi fraud ccentered on a supersecret labyrinth of interrelated international funds, institutions and financial entities of almost unparalleled complexity and breadth......with assets and businesses in multiple places overseas that hid thievery, money launderering, FEC fraud, and tax evasion.
” Ponzi king Madoff must be in awe of the “audacity” of these govt criminals who took a page out of fraudster Bernie’s Playbook.”
Bernie to cell mate “ You think I’m a crook? Compared to the Obama administration, I was a piker!! “
FTA: < snip > ..... But in an effort to save the economy from a second Great Depression, Bernanke engaged in plenty of unorthodox activities -- taking short-term interest rates to close to zero, buying $1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities ..... < snip >
The article doesn't mention the biggest reason that Bernanke "can't win" is that when politicians and other scoundrels start politicizing and turning him and the Fed into a whipping boy for all the economic problems or weak dollar and rising commodity prices etc. etc., Bernanke can explain ("defend") the policies - which he and the Fed OMC ultimately decide on - in terms what these policies will or will not do, but he can't really say this :
"I would love not having to do this because there are also negative trade-offs, but with the Fed's limited and blunt policy options there is only so much we can do to keep this economy afloat and off the brink of another deep Recession / deflationary Depression / Lost Decade, because you keep electing political leaders and the governments that have royally screwed you by overtaxing, overregulating and overborrowing / overspending you into "prosperity" that you are now finding yourself in. Don't expect the Fed and monetary policy to bail you out of the fiscal wrecks by rascals you keep voting for, no matter who the Fed chairman at the time may be."
That's understandable. "When you are loved you can do nothing wrong. When you are hated you can do nothing right," and the Fed / Bernanke have long been a convenient whipping boy for politicians of all stripes and parties, financial traders long and short, real economists of all "schools" and particularly for the pseudo-"economic" blogs that substitute screaming headlines for logic or facts.
I just don't want the conservatives / Republicans repeating the political mistakes post-1994 when they kept so concentrating on the negatives (real or imagined) only to be contrary to Democrats / Clinton that by 1996 - when Clinton simply took the credit for anything positive going on in the economy (real or perceived) even as a result of Republican Congress and Contract With America - they had nothing to take credit for, because it was constant reflexive and impulsive bashing of things and events - major and minor, important or irrelevant, deserved or not - just to do or say something contrary to what Clinton did or said.
Democrats and other political scoundrels are very skillful in changing the subject and never miss the opportunity to shift the blame for the consequences of their own mistakes - or, as in the case of most recent economic disaster, their misdeeds - on other people or entities. That's how they often escape accountability for their own actions. That is equivalent to the 9/11 Commission, where Jamie Gorelick was on the wrong side of the table and Bob Kerrey kept asking why "swatting the flies" was not a great idea.
I don't want to see Republicans falling for and getting distracted by the Democrats or al-media providing "helpful" commentary or "explanations" of what's really going on in the economy and especially the "reasons" for why something "worked" or didn't "work" in the economy or financial markets. Unfortunately, I've seen too much of this.
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