Good morning! My wife and I watched Ben Bernanke on 60 minutes with interest last night. I kept wondering why he was on. Sure, he presented himself as a small-town boy who wasn't in bed with Wall Street. He seemed to be a down-to-earth gent who wanted to appear human. All that is well and good.
My question is this? Why now? Excuse me for being cynical but it appears Mr. Bernanke and the Fed. want to uphold whatever reputation they think they have. Thus, the public relations blitz. It will be interesting to see if it takes hold. Personally, I don't think so. It's interesting how so many smart people ( Bernanke, Greenspan, Paulson, Weill, Greenberg to name a few) got it so wrong. I think it just goes to show you that greed gets in the way of doing the right thing.
Meanwhile, here we are. Small-time players trying to make an honest living yet susceptible to whatever decisions the big shots make. It makes me wonder if we wouldn't have been better off letting the free market dictate the economy. I realize there's danger here as well and expect to hear from you about why that wouldn't work either. As it is, our new administration is already caving about earmarks, deficits and the like. So what do you think? I know this. If I was incompetent at my job, I would either quit or get fired. Wouldn't it be nice if the fat cats had to play by the same rules? Have a great day!
Paul McFadden
The issue is regulation. The fed had no mandate and under the Bush era probably would not have gotten a mandate to regulate what was going on. Now did the fed snooze, and should they have looked a little harder at what was going on YES. It is hard not to blame them but in truth if you want the market to be free it is hard to blame them,. Hence the dilema. I di dsee Ben and thought he did a good job covering up.
This is all a public relations campaign to quiet the masses.
The last thing these jokers need to be doing is predicting the future. Like they have a lot of control.
Sadly, if they are wrong, it's just a big "oops" and there are no ramifications.
Paul, they didn't get anything wrong. It is part of an agenda. If you look at how The Fed is set up using fractional banking with no regulations, never been audited, and more powerful than the government, you will understand why they did nothing wrong in their eyes and the eyes of the International Bankers. You have to remember they control the money and the money supply which in essence translates into controlling the country. It is a broken system for the masses but for the Elite, it is their game.
Paul- I missed it- but hope to find it on YouTube or another source. Well written blog!
Tom: Thanks! It painted Bernanke as this grandfatherly type in touch with real America. Perhaps that's true. It's just that the trust factor is pretty broken right now.
Tony: Thanks for the insight. It's funny how the elite controls the game and, if we object, they try and show us how smart they are. To me, they're usually the ones with egg on their face.
Lenn: Well said. I like the use of the word jokers. I find I'm frequently using it to describe people who aren't very humble!
Charlie: It's funny when things go wrong at a high level. The blame game gets huge! No one wants to admit it was their fault!
Hi Paul, I think Ben is just plugging to keep his job. Geithner is in the same boat...not so great on performance and hoping for a little sympathy? Mind you Bernanke was on the job while Madoff got away with his scheme and even Greenspan played dumb about the existence of subprime so you have to wonder if Americans will fall for their line. I hope we all wake up and demand better of our civil servants!
Susan: You may be right. Everyone is on the hot seat; there is so much blame being tossed around. Eventually we'll work through this. It's just going to take some time! Take care.