That great economist, Ben S. Bernanke

For your amusement, here’s Bernanke a couple of years ago doing his best to downplay our problems:

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To the dismay of many a fair-minded observer, Bernanke the Fool has been nominated for another term as Fed chairman. My comment is, so long as there is a Fed, who cares who runs it? The chairman, like the US President, is nothing but a figurehead. He provides lip service for policies that exclusively benefit the cartel of big banks.  Thus it has been since the Morgan, Schiff, Warburg and Rockefeller syndicates conspired in 1913 to draft the Federal Reserve Act and ram it through Congress two days before Christmas.

I’m a little bit surprised that Bernanke was nominated again, since there is such low public opinion towards him and his employer. I thought that he might be thrown to the dogs to satisfy the public’s urge for ‘change,’ but I guess the logic is that by keeping him on they can better preserve the fiction that the Fed saved the world. He is also very lucky that the nomination schedule coincided with the likely peak in Wave 2 sentiment (2nd waves are characterized by the near consensus that the old trend is back to stay, in this case, the Great American Bull Market).

Along the same line, I’m also surprised that the campaign to audit the Fed hasn’t found more support from the White House, since it would be the perfect PR opportunity for them to pretend that they were independent of the bankers. I half expect to see the audit happen, with the results decided in advance of course, something akin to past Congressional “investigations.” Maybe they will have to do something like this once mood sours again with the next wave of foreclosures, bank failures and panic selling in the markets.

The real campaign should be to end the Fed, not audit it. We already know what it does, and they are actually surprisingly transparent for such a sinister institution. It’s all right there on their website.

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8 thoughts on “That great economist, Ben S. Bernanke

  1. I think you don’t get it Mike:
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aYMPMvyXHSgk

    Bernanke “has led the Fed through one of the worst financial crises that this nation and this world have ever faced,” Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery today in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, where Bernanke is to join him.

    “As an expert on the causes of the Great Depression, I’m sure Ben never imagined that he would be part of a team responsible for preventing another,” Obama said. “But because of his background, his temperament, his courage, and his creativity, that’s exactly what he has helped to achieve.”

    Even CalculatedRisk is supporting him:
    The financial system faced both a liquidity and a solvency crisis, and it is the Fed’s role to provide appropriate liquidity. Bernanke met that challenge, and I think he is a solid choice for a 2nd term (not my first choice, but solid).

    :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’( :’(
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  2. You’ve got to be kidding me. I haven’t read that blog much, but for some reason I had the idea that they were decent economists.

    The depression would actually be mostly resolved if the Fed and Treasury had stayed out of the way last year. All of the worst banks, the big ones, would be gone. Depositors would have flocked to the few sound banks left, which would have been lavishly rewarded for their prudence. Instead, all banks (and all productive people for that matter) are going to be bled for years to prop up the worst.

    Houses would be affordable again, and stocks would be much closer to their real values. Society would have learned a lesson about debt and what makes a decent investment (hint: not no-doc mortgages at 8X income backed by 3000 square foot houses in the desert).

    Google “depression of 1920″ to learn about an appropriate policy response to a credit crunch: Warren Harding did almost nothing but cut the budget (by about 40%) and pay off debt, and the country boomed. The year over year decline in GDP was actually greater then than in the 1930s, but the situation was resolved in no time. Compare that to Hoover and FDR… makes you wonder how the heros of our textbooks are chosen.

  3. Mike: With Bernanke at the helms again, this market may be poised to keep on going higher through non stop Money Printing and deficit spending …. even now, it appears there is nothing stopping this market higher untill Dow 12000, S&P 1200, Naz 2400 etc … What are the Market internals telling you? From a Contrarian point of view, when everyone is Bullish .. etc. that’s the time to take profits and enter a few short term positions to the downside … but in this kind of environment even that may be risky. Usually with the VIX at 20 was a great indicator that th Market is overbought … we are not there yet … Amongst the few catalysts I can think of to drive fear back into the Market where Money Printing will not help is the H1N1 Virus resurging … other than that I do not even dare to mention in a public blog …. Thoughts?

  4. “Our forecast is for moderate but positive growth going into next year. We think that by the spring, early next year, that as these credit problems resolve and, as we hope, the housing market begins to find a bottom, that the broader resiliency of the economy, which we are seeing in other areas outside of housing, will take control and will help the economy recover to a more reasonable growth pace.”

    Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman

    On Friday, investors took great cheer in an optimistic statement by Ben Bernanke suggesting good prospects for economic growth ahead. We might be inclined to place a sliver of credibility in Chairman Bernanke’s assessment – if not for the fact that the quote above wasn’t from last week at all, but rather, hails back to November 8, 2007, just before the recent recession began. You might recall that the S&P 500 was pushing 1500 at the time. The implosion of the global credit markets was still just a slight rumble.

    Curiousy of: http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc090824.htm

  5. @Daedal: But today they will not stop printing Money … this means The bubble we have today – in U.S. government bonds – is not only the biggest bubble of the last 20 years, it’s the biggest bubble of all time. Bankrupt countries don’t normally pay less than 4% interest on their 10-year fixed-debt obligati…ons. And sooner or later, all of our foreign creditors are going to realize the U.S. dollar isn’t immune from inflation and the U.S. government doesn’t walk on water … so, a 50% increase in the Market … HAHA!! Let’s talk about a 100%++ increase before all this goes to HELL!

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