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And I'll say it again, we did it to ourselves! WE kept the house/senate in office for all these years, Barney Frank and Dodd among many others were handing out money like it was birthday favors and yet we still demand more handouts and wonder why oh, why we are in this mess and it's those darned crooked rich people or GW Bush that did it to us. NOPE, it's congress that passed or didn't pass all the bills with all the pork and demanded that Fannie and Freddie finance houses for people that were basically unfit to buy a used car much less a house.
Get rid of 'em all if you want to fix things, get new people in there then demand an end to lobbyists and PAC's buying canidates.
Tone down the financial aid to countries that hate us or want to destroy us is another start.
In the end quit runing around blaming the wrong people, while it's easy to do and easy to follow the "party" or popular line think about it for a bit first, that's all I ask.
It's like the campaign commercial I just watched where our senator Max starts talking about the stock market and how bad it's gotten and then starts blaming the "dirty CEO's and stock brokers" even though he's never seen a pork bill he didn't like and voted for most of the bills that got us here to begin with.
I asked somebody "why don't we toss this guy" and was told "he's so senior and the head of to many committies we'd lose too much money that he brings into the state". OMG...
It would not matter if he was the smartest person in the world.He can't stop people from making mistakes or save them from the results.Do you really think he advised those who bought homes they could afford to buy them or told people to runup their credit card to the point of ruining their future.In the ned his job is very limitewd and his powers also.When you heard a congressman disagree with him do you really think the congressman even has a idea what he is talking about. Might want to watch the congressman read from his talking points if you look closely.
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Bernanke was somewhat 'set-up' by Greenspan. He laid a pretty poor foundation, as we should have put the controls in place while we were enjoying 'nirvana'. Instead we were killing the golden goose by encouraging poor oversight. (don't forget Enron and other sleeze jobs under Greenspan's watch, all symptomatic) Greenspan is an interesting guy, but I think he has a tad too much "not-on-my-watch" pride. There were a lot of warning signs, and he allowed 'irrational exuberance" to blossom in areas other than the markets (where he also did not place adequate controls). The normal 'Joe Investor' is getting raped daily by leveraged players. This is not your grandma's investment climate. The thieves are everywhere. CYA - types, but,,, It's legal", thus "Do-it". Who cares how many folks get scr_w_d.
It's not really in the jurisdiction of the Federal Reserve to change the morality of the business climate in the USA. Apparently it is not anyone's fault
That is congresses job. But then they wanted people to get easy credit to buy homes.That is why they refused oversite on fannie Mae and mac.But they liike so many thought home values would keep rising ;so no one would get in a home that was worth less than owed.
this is exactly what i mean... why is he acting reactively to the market as bad news flows in? why couldn't he be proactive and take the initiative 2 years ago when many economic scholars including Peter Schiff,
Schiff isn't an economy scholar he is a sleazy Wall Street investor. And the job of the federal reverse is to primarily act reactively. The FED should not act on speculation, it should only act on hard data. Even if you know a meltdown is coming there is no way to predicate exactly how things will play out, without knowing the details there is no effective monetary policy to implement. What did you want to the FED to do, talk about a meltdown?
Anyhow, the economy isn't even in an official recession yet. So talking about how successful or not Bernanke and friends have been is way too premature. In a couple of years we will know whether he did well or not. But he nor anybody else would be able to stop a recession, the question is whether he can stop another depression.
That is congresses job. But then they wanted people to get easy credit to buy homes.That is why they refused oversite on fannie Mae and mac.But they liike so many thought home values would keep rising ;so no one would get in a home that was worth less than owed.
Why is everyone talking about the system as if it was broken? It is acting exactly as it was designed to do.
Most people don't understand that system. Bernanke has no more control over the emotions of people than I do over the weather. I can keep myself dry during a rainstorm. I can't stop the rain. Yet.
Most people don't understand that system. Bernanke has no more control over the emotions of people than I do over the weather. I can keep myself dry during a rainstorm. I can't stop the rain. Yet.
wrong... bernanke can control human emotion MORE then any person else on this planet... it's called, changing the interest rate!
Most people don't understand that system. Bernanke has no more control over the emotions of people than I do over the weather. I can keep myself dry during a rainstorm. I can't stop the rain. Yet.
Hello paperhouse,
You are certainly right. I guess a simple clue should be that the Fed was created in 1913 to prevent a depression about 16 years before the Great Depression. A skillful surgeon does not think to himself, I should have cut a little more to the left on his dying patient knowing full well he is using a chain saw. He knows that tool will always kill the patient.
Here is an analogy of the system.
A certain group of penguins are stranded on an ice burg because of a leopard seal attack . As the hours go by the need to eat becomes great. Pretty soon the first one jumps in and is OK and eats fish. This one, who was most desperate, took a great risk. The next, also desperate, feels some assurance that the other was not eaten and so too jumps in. The the rest begin to feel safe enough and begin to jump in in greater numbers.
Now all this commotion draws the attention of a leopard seal. One penguin is mauled but in all the action few seem to notice and then more seals come and the water becomes filled with seals and many penguins begin to be slaughtered with their blood filling the water and become very afraid. They then all flee to the ice burg and sit upon it with great fear.
In this analogy the penguins in the water are the money supply by people taking on debt.
During asset price deflation taking on debt is the worst thing you can do. If you borrow a $1000 today and you lose your $50,000 job for a $25,000 job your real debt has doubled. In depressions debt is the biggest enemy for an individual because your nominal debt is stable while fewer dollars are available to pay it. However it is collective suicide . The system depends on the first one to take on great risk and go into debt. If one decides to go in the water too early and is again mauled, all will be frozen with fear.
The system depends on borrowing in a state of fear. How much faith do you have in a system that requires people to walk up to a cannon with its fuse lit? They also borrow the most at the worst possible moments, when everyone else is borrowing. Berneke and every Fed chairman before him knows this or they are complete idiots. Have a look at Japan. They went through an agonizing depression because they would not go into debt because in 1990 they were all badly mauled because in the late 80's they thought they couldn't lose.
It has been an obvious success in what it was designed to do. Sheer the sheep with first inflation and then deflation. However for us it is as a failure since it was designed to work against our interests.
Last edited by gwynedd1; 10-08-2008 at 01:02 PM..
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