Comments on: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's Take On The Economy
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- "Take on the economy"? He is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. He, Congress, and the President have had more to do with this continued high unemployment than anyone else. If hundreds of $billions of bogus stimulus money didn't work in the past, what makes him think it will work now? The only thing they have accomplished so far is running up a record breaking $1.3 trillion deficit giving us a staggering $13.8 trillion national debt. We are projected to hit the $14.2 trillion debt ceiling in May 2011. Another massive stimulus would make that happen much sooner.
No. We have come out of recessions in the past, increasing employment quickly - and we didn't do it by massive expansion of the federal government, bogus stimulus, and bailouts. We cut taxes and burdensome regulations on businesses and individuals - and we stabilized the the tax rules. Businesses will not spend money to hire people because they understand that the stupid health care bill will cause them huge additional expenses. They don't know how to do long term planning because they are being jerked around by the federal government threatening to increase their taxes. This administration, including Chairman Ben Bernanke, have caused this uncertainty for business with wacky policies.
We need to extend the current tax rates for everyone for at least 5 years, we need to repeal the stupid health care bill, and we don't need to add massively to the national debt. Businesses need stable economic rules (extend tax rates and undo some of the heavier regulations imposed on them). They need at least 5 years of certainty, in order to do long term planning. They can't just willy nilly hire people without the government giving them a sound playing field.
President Obama has been doing different things than President Bush, but it has been the wrong things to ensure a stable economy. Businesses need stability - they need taxes and regulations reduced for a period of at least 5 years. Regarding the national debt; the bloated and wasteful federal government must learn to be efficient and lean. We must demand it. We must reduce this government to the size and scope of one we can afford. It must stop spending money it doesn't have. - Reply to this comment
- Of all the reasons for the rise in gold prices, the most relevant and enduring of these is not even mentioned: America has no answers and will not have solutions for a long time!
Locate the book that explains this in depth: "American Righteousness And Renaissance" by Mendel Edwardson from Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com - Reply to this comment
- I think the average person, if you were to ask them how the economy got destroyed, they'd say something like that it was good under Bill Clinton. Then he went and 'triangulated' with the Republicans and deregulated banking and finance and signed an explosion of free trade deals that shipped manufacturing overseas. With fewer jobs and ones that were lesser paying, and everything made overseas and being imported, the Federal Reserve needed to keep interest rates low in an attempt to try and keep the economy affloat.
And because of that decision by the Feds, rather than that excess availability of credit and market forces giving rise to that nebulous and ever elusive economy of "innovation", "technological change and progress", and "entrepreneurial culture", it gave rise to an economy based solely on the business of extending credit. Car companies, furniture sellers, clothing stores, appliance manufacturers, all got in the business of credit. People who's incomes were shrinking started looking to real estate and the stock market to supplement their incomes in an attempt to sustain their standard of living. Shoot, even the government got into the practice of borrowing on the cheap, using credit to start 2 wars and artificially pump up the economy.
Then everything came crashing back to reality.
And then people wonder, shouldn't Bernanke have maybe seen it coming?
And yet, here he is, saying the antidote to the economy is to make credit more available, and that market forces'll create that 'service economy' that was supposed to take the place of those manufacturing jobs that got shipped overseas, causing that gargantuan trade deficit that's been a huge lag on GDP.
Clearly, Bernanke for whatever reason can't see it coming. But I think everybody else does, don't they? I don't think people feel credit is the solution. Like I don't even think banks think credit is the solution. Consumers don't. A lot of economists don't.
So is it appropriate for him to still be in the position he's in? I almost feel that what people like about him is the certitude he shows rather than the substance of his policies - like people want to believe that somebody knows what they're doing because it gives them hope?
But maybe it would be best to try somebody new ... - Reply to this comment
- Hyper-inflation will be his legacy. Congratulations Ben for killing the dollar.
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- Mr. Bernanke, let's go back to the basis! 1+1=2 and all your economic plans since 2008 are based on 1+1=3 its the rich people equation!
America has been robbed...banks ran out of Cash....and who took that money? Well the FBI caught "Moddof", but not the $50 Billions...it disappear! And trillion disappear same period that no one know were did it go!
Also, the trillion dollars bail-out money it suppose to create jobs and have cash flow at the banks, well its gone too!
Let's go back to the basis 1+1=2
Small businesses count 90% of USA economy including hiring; they hired High School graduates and pay them good wages and some benefits, and they hired people that don't even speak English and made good life, too!
Small business owners rely 100% on home equity or small loans, both are gone including the credit cards. Your policy to bail-out the big guys didn't help, they took the money and invested in China and other countries, and you know why...So China can lend us money!
Economy cicle once every 10 years ups and down, and we have get use to it!!!!! But people find solutions by borrowing money against their home equity for medical care, for kids college, for trip, for a car...to open business (mom & shop store) and for many other things, and they have been ROBBED...yes ROBBED...
you send me your big guy to my neighborhood to sell a F***in home for 15 cents on the dollar and you're tell me hey we are working on the economy...
the economy wont go back to normal until you give me back my home equity, becasue a F***in job wont pay my bills unless I work 2 full time jobs 7 days a week!
Your policy have screwed the home value (10 cents on the dollar) cheaper than auction and the only way out is to forgive everyone as they did back in the depression, FREE HOME! This is the Quick Fix to our economy, otherwise don't show up on T.V. to sell me some bull..Sht! - Reply to this comment
- The Benbernank has a nice beard, but so does my plumber.
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- As per the last 60 Minutes interview with Burnanke I didn't expect any hard questions however what I did find interesting was the fact that Bernanke seemed decidedly nervous. Gone was the smug self-assurance of the last interview.
I think the reality of the situation may be dawning on Bernanke. He has spent trillions of dollars and all it has done is make a few billionaire bankers even richer. He has dropped interest rates to zero and it has not helped. According to his life's work on economic theory the economy should be out of a recession by now. Maybe he is starting to wonder if he was wrong and will go down in history as the man that destroyed the US economy.
It's an insane policy anyway to have one unelected official wielding the power to set economic policy for the whole country. Even more insane when you realise that the Federal Reserve is a private bank owned by the same bankers that are being bailed out. The Fed spends trillions of dollars and will not even tell congress where the money went.
And why should we entrust Bernanke with steering the economy when he has been consistently wrong on every call over the last few years? Here is a selection of clips with Bernanke in 2005 assuring us that there is no possibility for a housing market slump and that there was no problem with the sub prime market:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QpD64GUoXw
Inflation is now assuredly on its way and yet Bernanke now says he is 100% sure he can control inflation with higher interest rates. He must realise though that if he raises interest rates high enough to control inflation it will kill the economy and bankrupt the US Government as it will not be able to afford the cost of servicing it's trillions of dollars of debt.
Either Bernanke is delusional or he is lying but either way the Fed needs to be dismantled and the right to print money given back to the Government as per the Constitution of the United States of America. - Reply to this comment
- This interview was lame and sugar coated. Bernanke actually appears nervous and hiding much. If one listens to the top economists at round tables, videos which can be found on youtube, a whole different sense of the mess comes to light.
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- Bernanke is a stammering ideologue who recognizes that the Fed created the Great Depression but neglects to mention that it also created the current depression. More public sacrifice will be needed, but that is the cure for everything the government does wrong.
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- Many people may not realize this, but the recession has been over for a long time and the economy is doing great. The stock market is going up. Companies are reporting profit, and CEOs are still getting huge bonuses. And yes, they're hiring big time... just not in the U.S. They'll continue to outsource jobs as long as oversea labor is cheap, and it appears to be that way for a long, long time.
So stop wondering when the economy will recover and unemployment will go down. The economy is doing fine, just not for the middle class. - Reply to this comment
