Comments on: Ben Bernanke's Greatest Challenge

Fed Chairman Discusses Recession, Financial Rescues And Recovery In Wide-Ranging 60 Minutes Interview

[mcceltic07]

Great interview. Kudos to 60 minutes. Bernanke is a very smart man and is very aware of all of the risks that are involved in the long run i.e. inflation, deflation and balance of payments deficits. It's time for the american people to trust the FED again and get back to business. Wall Street is broken and has made it's bed in history. The best thing main street can do is take your money out of these firms in question and move them to small community banks and credit unions. Reward those who were responsible.

[deebunkr]

Here's what's so absolutely infuriating. When queried by Pelley as to the motivation for rescuing the Wall Street banks, Bernanke endeavored to employ the analogy of a neighbor's house set afire due to the neighbor's carelessness, or stupidity, and the need for the remaining neighbors, rather than punishing the offending neighbor for his carelessness by simply letting his house burn, helping to extinguish the fire so as to save their own. A false analogy if ever there were one. The local and regional banks where I live and do business remain strong and solvent irrespective of the misfortunes of Wall Street. Who did he think would buy that weak premise?

[Zawebo]

What we have is a financial system under the heavy hand of the federal government and in spite of the many regulatory agencies to maintain it, it still continues to fail: the stagflation of the 1970s; the severe recession in the early 1980s that took to near the end of that decade to recover; followed by the saving and loan disasters of the late 1980s and then another severe depression in the early 1990s that again took most of that decade to recover; We then had the so-called Dot com Bubble at the beginning of this decade and a recovery fueled by cheap mortgages and now this so-called sub-prime mortgage crises. How many of these disasters do we have to have before we understand we have a flawed system?
It is not this ?naturally thing called the trade cycle? Bernanke, Greenspan, Geithner, Summers, Paulsen, Rubin and all the rest of those economic types who serve as the Gods of this flawed system want us to believe. If you really want to see the source of these problems, the reasons behind them and the solution check out the book: A Plan For America?. I found this book on Amazon.com about a month ago. Its full title is: A Plan For America: The Means to Economic Health, And Preservation of Our Democratic Republic as Told by an Entrepreneur.

[smilnjackw]

I think its time for Dodd, Schummmmer, Reid, Peloski, Frank, Waters, obama to resign. They were behind TARP 1. Remember when obama set in his airplane and phone in telling Reid what to put in Tarp 1. McCain then called off debate and flew to Washington DC and obama high tailed it up there and made his demands in the Whitehouse meeting and all left. Well obama your chickens are coming home to roost and to be honorable as they do in China all you should resign immediately. We are sick of the rape of the TAXPAYERS.
Harry Reid was on Rusty Humphries Talk Show Friday night and Harry said Americans are sad they are not MAD. It time to tell Harry we are Mad as Hell
Call Harry Reid 202 224 5556 in Washington DC and Let him know how Mad we are with the obama and the SENATE
email him
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

[mdf1951]

The Federal Reserve is not part of our government. What if the investers quit buying our treasury bonds. The Federal Reserve is not for the first time is buying them.

[lfcares]

Sadly, Pelly did not challenge Bernanke on a single question. Instead Pelly just listened to Bernanke, accepting the fact as gospel that Bernanke knows what he is doing. Well if Bernanke knows what he is doing why are we in this mess?

I would have hoped for something like "OK If you have a plan what exactly is it, and why does it seem to be changing day by day by the seat of your pants?"

The biggest risk in my opinion is we keep listening to Ben Bernanke, self-proclaimed expert on the great depression. Yes policy mistakes were made in the great depression, the biggest of which is arguably a tariff which caused a collapse in trade. Blatantly illegal actions were undertaken as well, such as the confiscation of gold and the burning of produce attempting to force prices up.

However, the root cause of the great depression was without a doubt the reckless expansion of credit that preceded it.

Where was any hard hitting journalism that we need right now?

[Nathan_Yawhoo]

"The Fed actually pays for itself and returns billions in profit to the Treasury."

Ok, Scott Pelly, Are you implying that the Fed is government? Now, if I could print my own
money I could pay for myself too! It would be great if I could just print my own money -
that would be almost a hundred percent profit.

I believe the government allow the Fed to make our money [which we in turn borrow - at
interest]. Wow! that's a heck of a scheme. And you said Congress created the Fed.
Well, that isn't quite accurate either. The Fed people wanted to be "created", so they
bribes a few good congressmen.to do it.

Now, as far as the Fed returning "billions" to the Treasury, I'm still researching that one,
and so far I have found anything to verify that..

And another little secret you failed to disclose, is that our economy is dedt based or in
other words our money IS debt and is backed only by our governments power to tax us
sheeple. I keep wondering how long this Ponzi scheme can go on before somethng
really drastic will happen......maybe this is IT.

[dbovey]

I want to thank 60 minutes and the Federal Reserve Chairman, Mr. Bernanke, for their informative and enlightening interview last Sunday night. For all that we hear in the news, it is an incredible gesture that Mr. Bernanke broke tradition and spoke to the American people. I was impressed with all of his achievements and he appears to be the only person who understands our financial situation and is speaking honestly to the American people. I applaud your efforts to help all of us understand the financial crisis that we are facing.

[wouldntchaknowit]

So Bennie is upset at AIG? Well, this is why NATIONALIZATION is needed in the US, so the government doesn't waste the money it's given out.
You cannot have it both ways, give out all these money and expect the rascals receiving it to behave.
NATIONALIZATION is the way but Obama, who's turning out to be some kind of political hybrid freak, doesn't have the balls to do it.

by PhilistineTheArtLover at 7:34 AM : Mar 16, 2009

Excuse me ? an you say ... CASTRO? ,,, remember CUBA? I'll bet you'd just love to live there, with all the Cubans that have risked their lives to get out of that God forsaken hell hole.
Now do me and the rest of the free thinking people of the world a favor and STOP believing that Nationalism is the answer.

[wouldntchaknowit]

I find it amazing that there are so many people that believe that the Democrats are so innocent. try and take the non-biased approach, and look at the facts. it's pretty much all the so-called represeantives of US , the people, that can't be trusted any more, so please when you bash the Repubs, do so while giving the Dems equal scrutiny