Ben Bernanke

The Bernanke Buzz on What Ben Said

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Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke gave a 60 Minutes interview and now the world is all abuzz with the possibility of more quantitative easing. He said other stuff ya know, like income inequality is a real problem in the United States and the unemployment rate could tip the scales into another recession. He even came clean with the reality 2.5% annualized GDP growth is barely enough to maintain the status quo. Watch the interview for yourself below:

 

Prickly Fed on QEII

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By Numerian

 

This is the battlefield on which corporations and their customers are struggling for survival. If companies can make price increases stick, the consumer is going to bear the burden of inflation, and for a lot of consumers this can be the last gasp to bankruptcy.

Image:  Anonomyous

The Federal Reserve is on the defensive over its next round of Quantitative Easing, known as QE2. Over 20 distinguished economists and market analysts placed an ad yesterday in The Wall Street Journal urging the Fed to drop its plan to purchase $600 billion in Treasury securities over the next six months. Finance ministers around the world have deplored this policy for its tendency to generate global inflation and scupper the dollar on the foreign exchange markets. Even that noted financial expert Sarah Palin has published a Facebook criticism of the Fed’s “running the printing presses.”

Some Federal Reserve governors have warned about the potential inflationary implications of QE2, even though they voted for it. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and NY Fed President William Dudley have been in the media during the past week, justifying their QE2 decision. If you analyze their comments carefully, you realize they haven’t been helping their cause.

The QE2 Binge - Inflation on the Horizon

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By Numerian

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Don’t these men know the nasty history of central banks which monetize government deficits as the Fed is now doing?

The QE2 left New York harbor yesterday, on its voyage to ports all around the globe. Captain Ben Bernanke has promised to shower the inhabitants of such diverse locales as Brazil, India, and China with up to $600 billion of free money. Following his departure, central banks in these countries announced that they did not want the money and will enact regulations to forbid the QE2 to land in their country. (Image)

Such is the bizarre state of monetary policy in the United States that the second round of Quantitative Easing by the Fed is already being feared and rejected by economists and financial analysts around the world before it is even implemented. It may be that the market has come to realize that QE1 did not perform as promised. Job creation remained anemic, economic growth declined, commodity inflation accelerated, and bubbles popped up in a variety of markets.


Pumping up the Market

Burning Ben

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There is a huge push to not confirm Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke going on at this moment.

My problem with all of this activity is the Federal Reserve Chair is nominated by the President of the United States. frying pan fire Is a Bernanke alternative on the level of JP Morgan Chase Jamie Dimon, who is being considered to replace Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in the pipeline?

Will we go from frying pan to fire in not confirming Helicopter Ben?

To date, no financial reforms, including the Federal Reserve reforms, have even passed Congress. Isn't the point of all of this to never give another Alan Greenspan that level of power over the United States Financial system and policy?

Just sayin'.

Too Big To Fail - Today's Financial Services Committee Hearings

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Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified and then stonewalled another Q&A today in the House Financial Services Committee.

First to Fed. economic forecasts, otherwise known as gardening:

Job insecurity, together with declines in home values and tight credit, is likely to limit gains in consumer spending. The possibility that the recent stabilization in household spending will prove transient is an important downside risk to the outlook.

Geithner & Bernanke in Financial Services Committee Hearing

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Folks, I must recommend turning off the pundits on TV, CNBC and even many of the blogs and tune into CSPAN.

Today in the House Financial Services Hearing, Oversight of the Federal Government’s Intervention at American International Group, U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke, along with New York Fed Chair William Dudley testified.

Econ-Fin News Dec 1 2008 - Bernanke's Laissez Faire Dissected

Economics and Finance News - Dec 1, 2008

Bernanke and Paulson talk about the financial collapse
John Cassidy has a lengthy article in The New Yorker today which includes some excellent insights into U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and his miserable handling of the financial collapse, including, so far as I know, the first public discussion of an August 2007 meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in which the Fed’s initial approach was discussed and decided by Bernanke and a small group of top advisers.

First, Cassidy provides some interesting details on how Bernanke became Fed chairman,

“I always thought that Ben would stay in academia,” Mark Gertler, an economist at New York University who has known Bernanke well since 1979, told me. “But two things happened.”

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