Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich have both turned their sites onto to Federal Reserve and its leader, Ben Bernanke. Both Palin and Gingrich have started taking their shots via Twitter. The 2012 Wannabes are expected to follow suit. Attacks on The Fed, before September 2008, were pretty much confined to the gold bugs, conspiracy theorists, and the financial press.
Post election 2010 much has changed. According to the Huffington Post:
The tea party itself — judging from its 10-point “Contract From America,” at least — did not make the Fed a top concern; they were focused on spending issues.
But the tea party tide also swept in numerous libertarian hard-money types and fellow travelers, a cadre soon to grow. They hate the very idea of the Fed, not to mention Bernanke’s activism in running the place.
Hopefully Benanke will put on earplugs and blinders and do what he has to do. The Fed is an independent agency. Bernanke is appointed. He will not run for election or re-election. And meanwhile, Sarah Palin, the eternally ill-informed candidate who should not have run, continues to be mean as a snake. Maybe she will put a sock in it. I can’t imagine anyone whose advice I would be less likely to take. Palin witch hunts just about everything. She Ben Bashes but offers nothing positive.
Moon, CNBC is airing a special tonight you might be interested in, on the rebuilding of Ford: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39759908/
I suspect it is the proportion of $$ that goes into SS and medicare.
Thanks Cato.
Ben Bernanke is not a deity, and the FRB is not located on Mt. Olympus no matter its “different” relationship to the federal government. Criticism of an FRB decision is perfectly valid, and I do not believe that “bashing” is a fair term to use to define such criticism. To refute such criticism with factual arguments is fine in my book, but throwing in political bias against the critic seems to me to go too far. Better to stick to the precise topic at hand instead of turning everything into a political cut-and-shoot.
“You Lie!” is absolutely correct. I watched the video of Bernanke’s testimony on the debt at that congressional hearing. At that time, he virtually swore that the FRB would never monetize the debt because, plain and simple, it was a bad and potentially dangerous tactic. I suspect that what we are seeing now is his reaction to an unexpectedly slow economic recovery and Ben’s deeply held fear of deflation learned from his studies of the Great Depression. This change of philosophy and course has rightly surprised a whole lot of people and drawn much criticism. You may not like Gingrich and Palin for other reasons, but what they, like most of the other critics, are doing is throwing right back at Ben the very arguments which he used previously against monetization. It seems to me that Ben has decided to roll the dice between near-term deflation and severe inflation down the road. That roll of the dice is fair game for debate. I, too, have heard that there is some significant unhappiness with Bernanke’s decision within the FRB itself, although I have yet to see that in detail.
@Wolverine
When has Palin ever suggested an alternative? I can’t recall. She shrieks and gouges rather than offering suggestions for improvement.
My guess is she has no idea what she would do differently.
Is it political to think someone is unqualified to be shooting off their mouth? Please expect me to go ‘too far’ each and every time Palin shoots off her mouth without offering solutions.
Sarah has the ability to determine financial solutions like I know how to create a nuclear bomb. I would LOVE to see her in a debate with Bernake where tired old talking points would appear ludicrous.
I am not a Palin junkie by any means but I do find the growing tendency to diss her intelligence at a distance to be rather unfortunate. When anyone here gets the chance to sit down with her and have a long discussion about politics and governance, then come back and give me your first hand analysis of her smarts or lack thereof. You cannot make a long-distance judgement of her based on the sound bite world in which we all live now. Her remarks came in a tweek, as I understand it. Did you all expect a full blown discourse on the principles of monetary theory? Wait awhile. That will surely be coming from a whole variety of quarters. Bernanke knew this would come when he made his move. I just hope he will tell us all in more detail about what precisely made him change his course.
Palin answer to the debt has always been to cut the spending. If I am recalling correctly, that was also Bernanke’s recommendation at that congressional hearing. One of the congress critters than asked him where he thought the budget ought to be cut. Ben’s answer was, in essence: “Don’t ask me. That’s your job.” I am just wondering if Ben’s genuine concern with deflation has not been boosted by his feeling that these congress critters are never going to find a bi-partisan way to cut spending fast enough and deep enough to have the desired effect. Could be he is just hedging his bet and decided that the FRB is going to have to take some chances on its own.
Change that to “tweet’, not “tweek.” Doggone technology.
Cut spending? Now there is a sure fired cure for everything. That is a frigging sound byte and fairly meaningless. What if we started with military retirement?
Palin is known by her medium. She winks, gouges, attacks, and never offers any solution that isn’t a sound bite. I don’t even want to hear ‘the everybody does it’ excuse. Furthermore, no one has ever ‘attacked’ her intellect. I have no clue what her IQ is.
Being unqualified does not indicate low IQ. I like Elena’s idea. Let’s have a debate. Bernanke vs Palin. Palin needs to stop being a yapping Chihuahua in a kennel of great danes. She has neither the academics, the background, or the experience to be yapping and she has no solutions.
“Cut Spending” IS the solution when the government is having to monetize its debt.
Cut spending is a sound byte. It is meaningless unless specifics go with it.
Ex. Reducing next years pay raise to Congress will save X dollars.
Meanwhile, the ‘cut spending’ I see ffrom the deficit committee is sometimes a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Doing away with tax deductions and capital gains perks is simply imposing a tax. I would like someone to admit that.
Reagan got rid of all sorts of tax deductions. It amounted to a hidden tax increase.
You must be kidding, Moon. Being governor of a state means you have no background or experience on fiscal issues? You think it’s only a ceremonial position? If it’s a lack of that kind of background and experience you are decrying, you don’t have to look any further than the Oval Office.
Palin was a governor of a state with less population that of Fairfax County. She couldn’t stick it out and quit.
I might feel differently if she offered up some suggestions or solutions. She doesn’t. She criticizes and jabs, much along the same lines as Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin. Unless she is hiding it, she sure doesn’t have the credentials to be poking at Bernanke.
While I don’t generally agree with Newt Gingrich, especially when he is contemplating running for office, and I think he is a hypocrite. However, I don’t question his credentials. I do question hers and it is mainly because of how she has presented herself. She needs to present herself differently and in different situations if she wants to be taken seriously.
Look, Moon, the subject right now is the macro fiscal state of the Union. We have a total budget way out of whack. We have a towering national debt which stretches to absolute disbelief. We have an economy which is refusing to come out of the tank. By any fiscal standard this country is broke and is right now existing largely on the fumes of international credit and the money printers at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. These problems do not go back to just January 2009. This has been a long time abuilding, and it is now a common mess that falls on the shoulders of every one of us.
It seems to me that we have a number of possible choices; (1) ride it out as is and hope the economy kicks in sooner rather than later (very dangerous, as we are being told from almost all sides); (2) cut spending; (3) cut spending and raise taxes in tandem (the commission recommendation); or (4) monetize the debt (perhaps a short term benefit but also potentially very dangerous in the long term). The argument now is over what basic avenue to take. The Repubs are calling for reductions in spending. Bernanke is monetizing the debt. The commission call for a combo of spending reductions and increased taxes is already raising partisan hackles on both sides of the Congressional aisle even before the ink is dry. What the Dems want to do remains a mystery to me and will probablyy remain so until I see what Obama actually does with that commission report.
When someone like Palin (or anyone else, for that matter) announces for reduced spending and rejects Bernanke’s option, she is addressing only those basic choices. There is no one on this blog or anywhere else who should be demanding an immediate and detailed list of spending cuts to go along with such pronouncements. Palin is no more obliged to do that than was Bernanke in front of that Congressional hearing. She could give the same response, in essence , as that given by Bernanke: “Congress, that is YOUR job.” And both Palin and Bernanke would be right. We pay those people on the Hill to do this kind of thing in conjunction with the green eyeshaders in the Executive Branch. It is THEIR job, not ours. When they start to come up with specifics, then we can applaud or howl in pain as the case may be.
I am seeing all kinds of speculation on the blogs concerning where the cuts could be made or not made, including proposals to take a meat cleaver to entire agencies. Bloggers are making out-of-hand and off-the-top-of-the-head micro-budgeting proposals for mutliple agencies in a very large government as if they know every program and budgetary detail in every government agency. Well, I would like someone to step up and tell me they have such broad and in-depth expertise. Even if you work in a federal agency, you will have no clue about the fiscal affairs of the other agencies. I did a great deal of budget work at times in my own agency. That was tough enough to handle, especially whenever zero-based budgeting demands were laid on you. Having been through such a process where the demands were particular to my agency, I would never have the chutzpah to tell another agency in anything even near specific terms how to handle their own budgetary chores. In fact, I have been away long enough to know that any recommendations I made even for my former agency would be irrelevant because of the passage of time.
The fact is that, if we decide to make radical cuts in spending, the eyeshaders and their bosses in every agency — those who actually know the programs and the real score — are going to have to go after their own budgets in detail, hopefully with some guidance from both the Oval Office and the Hill. After they have made their internal decisions and recommendations, the referees and “deciders” at a higher pay grade will step into the fray. More than likely, many of those recommendations will come flying back with an order to find more to cut or to cut something else other than some of the items proposed. This will be a difficult process, probably with a great deal of internal bloodletting, folowed by artillery fire between the executive and legislative branches. Now, with this kind of deliberative prospect, how can one expect Palin or Bernanke or you or me or any other manjack out there to suddenly come up with precise proposals? Based on what? I’ll sit here and wait for somebody out there to tell me that THEY have a sure handle on the entire federal budget and on the status of every program in a federal government that has become huge and are , therefore, quite qualified to present a list of federal spending cuts at this stage of the game.
As for comparative populations, I guess that criteria would negate the possibility of someone who was governor of North Dakota or Vermont or Wyoming or any state with a population smaller than or only a bit larger than that of Alaska from ever aspiring to have a place on the national stage. Is this some kind of rule now?