Showing posts with label Fed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fed. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Has Ben Bernanke learned his lesson?

I'd thought that if there were any lesson that Federal Reserve policy makers had learned from the stagflation the Fed caused during the 1970s (weak growth in GDP coupled with high unemployment and high inflation) it's that the Fed can'...t fool people into creating real economic growth over the long term by creating an excessive growth rate in the money supply. As the monetary bubbles caused by Greenspan and Bernnanke this decade show, however, neither one seems to have learned the lesson. I'm not as optimistic as the Wall Street Journal editors that somehow Bernanke has learned his lesson between 2007 and now.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574372384193773524.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Embracing Bushonomics, Obama Re-appoints Bernanke

The failed Bush-Obama Keynesian inflationary policies continue. Greenspan actually started the mess by creating too much money which helped by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended up going mostly into real estate, where it gave people the erroneous impression that it represented more wealth. If the new money had pushed up consumer prices instead of real estate prices, everyone would have recognized it for the inflation that it was. Bernanke tried to stop the inevitable bust that came from Greenspan's inflationary bubble--by creating another inflationary bubble. So instead of just suffering a recession we suffered recession AND inflation, with food and especially gasoline prices spiking sharply in 2008. The spike in fuel prices savaged both the auto makers and the airlines, ensuring an even deeper recession. There's no surprise here that Obama wants to continue these failed policies, as the worse he makes things, the more he thinks he can scare Americans into accepting more government control.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/08/25/embracing-bushonomics-obama-re-appoints-bernanke/