Unemployment stands at 17.1-percent. Homes are being foreclosed on. Family incomes are falling. Small businesses are closing, large businesses have cut back on expansion. The national debt is soaring, standing at more than $13.6 trillion. The federal budget deficit exceeds $1,357 trillion and is climbing. The trade deficit has reached $502.5 billion dollars, up 34% from last year. The value of the U.S. Dollar is declining. And then there’s Ben Bernanke.
Mr. Bernanke is the chairman of the Federal Reserve System. He controls the interest rates charged to banks which borrow money from the Federal Reserve and in turn loan it to businesses and individuals who need it.If Bernanke decides that the cost of living is expanding too quickly, that’s called inflation, he raises the interest rate of the money the Federal Reserve loans which slows spending down, as who wants to pay high interest rates on the money they borrow? Remember the 20% interest rates back in the 80s? If he wants to speed spending up, he lowers the interest rate and, hopefully, people and businesses will borrow more, spend more, and keep the economy rolling along.
Well, last Friday Bernanke decided that he should do something about the depression which started when the Democrats took control of the congress four years ago. He thought that Obama spending billions of dollars on programs to get people back to work wasn’t working, remember those shovel ready jobs which weren’t. What we need, he said, is to get an inflation started in the economy. Inflation. That is when prices for everything go up. He is worried, you see, that inflation rates are too low. So he wants to make some adjustments in the economy to increase the inflation rate upward, to make everything more expensive. His logic is that if things cost more, there will be more money for investment, a income for businesses, more money for taxes, and an end to the recession.
The cost of living increased by 1.1% in September. That’s not good enough, should be higher, Bernanke said. Obviously he looks at things from a different viewpoint than any of the folks on fixed incomes. He obviously doesn’t relate with the 54-million people on social security, nor is he concerned, apparently, with the 15-million people who are unemployed.He also doesn’t relate to business owners, large and small, who have cut back on what makes the economy really grow. Hiring is down. Investment is down. Construction is down. That’s true, according to Bernanke. His solution, however, is to make things more expensive rather than less.
But where is the money to do this to come from? Simple. Just turn on the printing presses at the Treasury Department, print more paper money which won't be backed by any real financial reserve, watch the value of the dollar drop, and let the good times roll.
Mr. Bernanke’s credentials are impressive, but as with most government and political figures, his education is incomplete. He lacks the one essential quality of good management, street smart. He does not know the reality of actually operating a business, or living on an income of less than $25,000 a year, as do 45% of working people. How can he relate to business concerns when his experience has been limited to academics and government? How can he understand the plight of the 75% of workers who earn less than $50,000 a year when his salary at the Federal Reserve puts him into the 6% of the population making in excess of $100,000 a year? He is in the position of the aeronautical engineer who can design an airplane, has never flown one, and is called upon to land a 747 because the pilot passed out.
Mr. Ben Bernanke missed an opportunity to make a major contribution to ending the depression we are in. The answer is not in increasing costs by inducing inflation. The answer, as Mr. Bernanke’s history books will tell him, is for the government to cut spending, decrease taxes, and get out of the way of American business.
America was not built on government control and subsidies. It was built on risk taking by people who invested their money in hopes of making a profit. Bernanke should advise the President and Congress, the surest way to economic recovery is for government to quit trying to control business. What is needed is less control, less taxes, and letting free enterprise and capitalism take control again. He is a highly educated and respected economist. Maybe the Obama group would listen. But then Bernnanke is a bureaucrat, a politician, a theorist without the street smarts.
“If you lay all the economists end to end they would point in all directions” - Harry S. Truman.
Mr. Bernanke is the chairman of the Federal Reserve System. He controls the interest rates charged to banks which borrow money from the Federal Reserve and in turn loan it to businesses and individuals who need it.If Bernanke decides that the cost of living is expanding too quickly, that’s called inflation, he raises the interest rate of the money the Federal Reserve loans which slows spending down, as who wants to pay high interest rates on the money they borrow? Remember the 20% interest rates back in the 80s? If he wants to speed spending up, he lowers the interest rate and, hopefully, people and businesses will borrow more, spend more, and keep the economy rolling along.
Well, last Friday Bernanke decided that he should do something about the depression which started when the Democrats took control of the congress four years ago. He thought that Obama spending billions of dollars on programs to get people back to work wasn’t working, remember those shovel ready jobs which weren’t. What we need, he said, is to get an inflation started in the economy. Inflation. That is when prices for everything go up. He is worried, you see, that inflation rates are too low. So he wants to make some adjustments in the economy to increase the inflation rate upward, to make everything more expensive. His logic is that if things cost more, there will be more money for investment, a income for businesses, more money for taxes, and an end to the recession.
The cost of living increased by 1.1% in September. That’s not good enough, should be higher, Bernanke said. Obviously he looks at things from a different viewpoint than any of the folks on fixed incomes. He obviously doesn’t relate with the 54-million people on social security, nor is he concerned, apparently, with the 15-million people who are unemployed.He also doesn’t relate to business owners, large and small, who have cut back on what makes the economy really grow. Hiring is down. Investment is down. Construction is down. That’s true, according to Bernanke. His solution, however, is to make things more expensive rather than less.
But where is the money to do this to come from? Simple. Just turn on the printing presses at the Treasury Department, print more paper money which won't be backed by any real financial reserve, watch the value of the dollar drop, and let the good times roll.
Mr. Bernanke’s credentials are impressive, but as with most government and political figures, his education is incomplete. He lacks the one essential quality of good management, street smart. He does not know the reality of actually operating a business, or living on an income of less than $25,000 a year, as do 45% of working people. How can he relate to business concerns when his experience has been limited to academics and government? How can he understand the plight of the 75% of workers who earn less than $50,000 a year when his salary at the Federal Reserve puts him into the 6% of the population making in excess of $100,000 a year? He is in the position of the aeronautical engineer who can design an airplane, has never flown one, and is called upon to land a 747 because the pilot passed out.
Mr. Ben Bernanke missed an opportunity to make a major contribution to ending the depression we are in. The answer is not in increasing costs by inducing inflation. The answer, as Mr. Bernanke’s history books will tell him, is for the government to cut spending, decrease taxes, and get out of the way of American business.
America was not built on government control and subsidies. It was built on risk taking by people who invested their money in hopes of making a profit. Bernanke should advise the President and Congress, the surest way to economic recovery is for government to quit trying to control business. What is needed is less control, less taxes, and letting free enterprise and capitalism take control again. He is a highly educated and respected economist. Maybe the Obama group would listen. But then Bernnanke is a bureaucrat, a politician, a theorist without the street smarts.
“If you lay all the economists end to end they would point in all directions” - Harry S. Truman.
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