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.
If your against monetizing the debt to the tune of $600 BILLION, which Benanke promised (under oath) the fed would not do, then why isn’t EVERYONE ‘turning their sites onto the Federal Reserve’? It’s all about devaluing the dollar, something George Soros has openly called for several times in the past in order to build his vision of a “new world order”.
Interesting you picked the George Soros funded Huffington Post for this article given that Soros funds a portion of Huffington Post, why wouldn’t they go after anyone daring to question what Soros has wanted all along?
I know, you have said before that Huffington has plenty of money for her site… then why take MILLIONS from Soros for the site? Ill tell you why, they have very long and deeply connected ties. They have been working hand-in-hand for over a decade now. Soros used Arianna Huffington as the public face and co-stager of his Shadow Conventions in 2000. Look at how many Huffington Post ‘contributors’ come from Soros funded outfits like Media Matters, MoveOn and many many others.
The Huffington Post is simply doing George Soros’s bidding, attacking anyone who questions something that will get him one step closer to his ‘new world order’.
Palin with hunts just about everything. And the extreme left uses everything to with hunt Palin. Sorry, but she’s right here. There’s nothing heroic about devaluing the dollar. There’s no winner in monetizing the debt. Just like the bubble that burst in 2007/8, this bubble being created is at the hands of the government. So now conspiracy theorists and the entire financial press is one and the same. Too funny. You don’t notice commodities going up already?
Is my ‘c’ key broke?
Ben Bernanke was appointed by George W Bush. Why didn’t sorry Sara say something back then? Why didn’t she say something to her ex-boss, John McCain, who voted for him? She is stupid.
Both Gingrich and Palin are political has-beens, losers, who quit their elected offices when the heat got to be too much and are now accountable to no one. If they’re the best the teabaggers have to offer, Obama will win reelection in a landslide.
Palin/Gingrich 2012
The Fed has never done this before. O, the Fed has purchased bonds before, but never to this extent. Under normal conditions these actions would cause high inflation. Of course the economy is not under normal conditions at the moment. There is a legitimate concern of high inflation after the economy recovers.
Bernanke studied indepthly the Great Depression, and it is his contention that deflation was a major factor in prolonging said Great Depression. Over the past couple of years he has expressed concern about the possibility of deflation, and his actions at the Fed were primarily to combat deflation. It’s good for the short term, but the long term effects are unknown. It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out over the next five years.
Apparently, others think she might be on to something:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703514904575602231815453378.html
While others think that she’s wrong:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2010/11/08/sarah-palins-qe2-criticism-includes-inflation-hyperbole/
Some think that the backlash against her is really about politics:
http://www.businessinsider.com/spencer-bachus-vs-sarah-palin-2010-11
No matter what, she has struck a nerve. So, really, who are you going to believe? The government, who has fudged how inflation has been judged for years, or your own eyes and check book? Is there inflation or not?
Remember, this is the same government that reports unemployment by the number of jobless claims instead of total unemployment. (Notice I said government, not administration. Every admin has done this.)
How are senior groups like AARP taking this news? Normally I have no issue with other governments being irked off with what the US does but when you see stuff like this?
“I don’t think they are going to solve their problems that way,” Schäuble told German public broadcaster ZDF in a Thursday evening interview. “They have already pumped an endless amount of money into the economy via taking on extremely high public debt and through a Fed policy that has already pumped a lot of money into the economy. The results are horrendous.”
and
As has the financial press in Germany. “The most recent step taken by the Federal Reserve in the continuation of a series of undesirable developments in the US,” writes the business daily Handelsblatt on Friday. “Instead of finally facing up to the excessive debt problem, accepting the uncomfortable truths and introducing painful reforms in the country, debt-financed stimulus programs remain the only strategy that Bernanke & Co. seem able to come up with.”
I think we should collectively pause.
On the upside, I think Dr. Paul is on track to be made Chair of the committiee that oversees the Fed. That’ll be fun to watch. 🙂
And we should be taking advice from Germany because?????
Sterling track record there.
The Fed’s decisions do not have to be ratified by the president or congress. It might just be like watching paint dry. Dr, Paul is a wing nut.
@El Guapo
There is no sign of inflation being a problem any time in the near future. Inflation occurs when the debt to Gross Domestic Product ratio is high. As it stands, that ratio is not as high today as it was in the 1970s.
November 9, 2010, 11:54 am
Inflation Delusions
Wow — so the official right-wing line seems to be that all the talk about falling inflation is a leftist plot — that real people know that prices of real things like groceries are soaring. I should have guessed that from the ravings of our resident troll (singular — internal evidence suggests that there is only one).
Anyway, I thought it would interesting to see how much the price of groceries has diverged from other measures of inflation, in particular the core inflation whose logic, no matter how often explained, never seems to get across.
So, the following figure shows inflation measured at different time horizons. It asks, what is the average inflation rate over the past 10 years, the past 9 years, etc., if you look at core prices versus looking at food consumed at home, aka groceries:
What we see is that grocery prices have tended to rise faster than inflation as measured by the core CPI, but not by all that much: over the past 10 years the grocery inflation rate has been about half a point faster than the core inflation rate. If you look at more recent data, what you see is that grocery prices have bounced around; if you’re asking about the one-year inflation rate, grocery prices have risen somewhat faster than the core rate, but over the past two years grocery prices are actually down.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
What inflation?
@I’m baaaack… as hello
Sounds like a strong case of too much Glenn Beck to me. I am not sure there is a cure for that, Hello.
It starts with thinking George Soros wants to control your mind…….
@Slowpoke Rodriguez
Sarah Palin doesn’t have the credentials to be discussing the Fed. Before last week she probably didn’t know there was such a thing.
And real people who have something important to say don’t ‘tweet.’
Now if I have to trust Bernanke or Palin…who will I trust?
@El Guapo
As opposed to Sarah Palin who has studied nothing other than opportunism.
I have been polite about this shrieking, tweeting fool long enough. No more ms. nice gal about SP. What is the Palin solution to moving the economy? Notice that is missing from the equation? She is great for telling people what is wrong but she has ZERO answers herself.
Guapo, thanks for pointing out that President Bush appointed Bernanke and also a little background.
November 07, 2010
In Which Bob Zoellick Makes His Play for the Stupidest Man Alive Crown
The last thing that the world economy needs right now is another source of deflation in a financial crisis. And attaching the world economy’s price level to an anchor that central banks cannot augment at need is another source of deflation–we learned that in the fifteen years after World War I.
Which is why Bob Zoellick says that we need it.
Alan Beattie watches the intellectual train wreck:
Zoellick seeks gold standard debate: Leading economies should consider readopting a modified global gold standard to guide currency movements, argues the president of the World Bank. Writing in the Financial Times, Robert Zoellick, the bank’s president since 2007, says a successor is needed to what he calls the “Bretton Woods II” system of floating currencies that has held since the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate regime broke down in 1971. Mr Zoellick, a former US Treasury official, calls for a system that:
is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and a renminbi that moves towards internationalisation and then an open capital account…. The system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values…. Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today.”
They do not. They simply do not. That is not true. Markets are using gold as a speculative asset and a hedge. They are not using it is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, or a safe store of nominal value.
He really may be the Stupidest Man Alive.
Alan Beattie politely says:
Although there are occasional calls for a return to using gold as an anchor for currency values, most policymakers and economists regard the idea as liable to lead to overly tight monetary policy with growth and unemployment taking the brunt of economic shocks…
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/11/in-which-bob-zoellick-makes-his-play-for-the-stupidest-man-alive-crown.html
The above should make Dr Paul angry.
George Soros doesn’t want to control our mind, just our dollar, until it’s useless. According to his own estimates he made about $1 BILLION in the 1992 collapse of British economy.
Also, you commented on my points as a ‘case of too much Glenn Beck’ but didn’t address one thing I said. Arianna Huffington has been working closely with George Soros for a very long time now. George Soros funds the Huffington Post, why wouldn’t media that he directly funds complain about someone talking about the Fed devaluing the dollar, something Soros has called for for years?
You also avoided the fact the Bernanke said under oath that the Fed would NOT monetize our debt, that is exactly what they just did. Why wouldn’t EVERYONE want to take a closer look at that?
I was listening to John Bachelor last night, and Kudlow made it plain. Bernanke deserves to be criticized, and it’s coming from finance ministers from all over the world, as well as from Sarah Palin. He’s even catching hell from some of the othier Fed Bank governors. If this many people are against what Ben is trying to do, that should tell you something.
Um, you know we “hired” a community-organizer to be President, right? And Biden’s not really qualified to pick his own nose, but he’s VP, for cryin’ out loud! And your tweet comment reminds me of when Obama texted his VP choice to folks.
Now, chances are Palin is playing politics and not really interested in the damage done by central economic planning. I know most libs here are fans of it, but it has run into problems in other countries. Oh, and why would we listen to the Germans? Well, the short answer is, they’re smarter than we are. The longer answer has to do with their current economic conditions, but I doubt anyone in lib-ville could understand these things.
There will be many different opinions. Sarah Palin simply lacks the credentials to weigh in.
Has she ever offered up a suggestion as to what TO do? Didn’t think so.
Ah, it’s fun to watch the ultra-left get totally delusional! Obama in a 2012 landslide! Rising commodity prices? I don’t see any rising commodity prices! It’s like the former Iraqi government folks announcing “Glorious Victory” while US soldiers were over-running Baghdad.
@Slow
Uh, you are aware that before he was president Barack Obama was SENATOR Obama? And you are aware he has a law degree and was a professor?
Community organizer? I also used to collate print pages in a print shop. Does that define me for life?
And I totally disagree about Joe Biden. Biden has been a Senator for years. He has chaired committees. You might not like Biden but don’t take away from his years of service.
Tweeting and texting are very different.
The Germans are smarter than we are? OK. That’s why we protected their sorry asses after we had to beat them into oblivion in the early 40’s. Sorry, no nation that elects Hitler and is the home of the Holocaust gets to be smarter than any American.
The Marshall Plan wasn’t because they were smart. It was because they were starving to death and living in devastation, surrounded by the Iron Curtain.
They would be living in squallor still if it weren’t for the United States.
So this isn’t about criticizing the Fed, this is just about Sarah Palin?
Moon,
Being elected senator when you have no opposition is not hard. Nor is serving as senator. Look at the crop of dunces and corrupt fools that are in office. Just because Obama has a law degree and was a professor means nothing as qualifications for Presidency. Truman was a professor and he was one of the worst presidents that we’ve had. Oh! Look! Similarity!
Biden may have chaired committees and been a Senator. He’s still an idiot. That’s why Obama picked him. I mean, Palin was a governor but everyone calls her an idiot. So, apparently, office holding is not evidence of intelligence.
The Germans are smarter than we are, currently. They are not trying to spend their way out of debt and THEIR economy is improving faster than any other in the industrial world. Just because we bombed them and then did the Marshall Plan isn’t relevant to today.
If one needs credentials to “weigh in” on a subject, then all the blogs and magazines, and assorted other punditry needs to close. I don’t have credentials in finance, but I can tell that when you print money to buy your own debt, something is wrong. When every creditor warns about our spending, something is wrong. When commodities shoot through the roof because of a falling dollar, and the gov’t doesn’t seem to be worried, something is wrong.
AAAHHHHH, Write, EDIT, THEN PUBLISH!
“Truman was a professor”
I meant WILSON.
Tweeting and texting are very different. rriiiight!
Senator for what, a couple months?
If you could see the jaw-dropping math problems German kids are doing when 10 years old, you’d get my meaning about the Germans being smarter than we are thing.
Slow, where can I find that?
@Cargosquid
I was watching it on the U-Bahn in Munich. Kid was laying on the floor working on a math problem. I was looking down at the problem and I almost messed my pants. But all one needs to do is look at which EU country is loaning all the others money, which one is an export nation, which one can engineer a phone switch worth a damn, which one has rapidly dwindling unemployment. The WWII stuff? Yeah, that’s relevant for today’s economic realities.
@Slow, I am sure there are American kids who do jaw dropping problems also.
I would suggest you not turn up your nose at the WWII stuff too quickly. Perhaps you are forgetting who put the Germans back on their feet. What was our country doing all that time? Paying off our war debt which was higher than our debt is today.
@CARgo- I think we are simply discussing a difference in political tastes. The bottom line is, Obama is president and Sarah Palin isn’t. Did you happen to catch George Bush’s opinion of the mouth from Alaska? Big reminder, the population of Alaska is not even the size of Fairfax County. Gerry Connolly and his 16 years as chairman of the Board of Supervisors has more experience than she does.
Personally, I love QE because I can make out like a fat rat and be on to the next bubble.
However, you progressives need to think about what it is that you’re saying here. Case in point, I listen to some very boring conference calls, and yesterday much to my dismay I found myself attempting to stay awake through the earnings call of Dean Foods. Want to guess what they had to say about prices of the raw commodities used to manufacture their food products? If you hummed something like “skyrockets in flight” you’d be correct. This will eventually show up in your grocery bill, I assure you.
Another example is oil, it’s up about 15% since the summer. It’s not going to be long before that’s going to show up in the prices of gasoline and heating oil. And all you people out there living on fixed incomes, guess what happens when the Fed increases the M2 (money supply) by 10%?
My point is this – the bottom 95% of Americans spend 60% of their discretionary income on things like food, fuel and clothing while people like me (the top 5%) only spend about 10% on those items. Prices are going to be inflated on the things you *have* to buy to survive, while I on the other hand can pick and choose what to invest in.
Bernanke is monetizing the debt on the backs of the working poor and the middle class. I don’t see how anyone who is not in the top 5% can support that policy.
Oh, and P.S. Soros makes his living as a currency speculator, specifically as a short so it really isn’t a surprise to see his machinery in full-throated defense of QE.
Cato, that’s why I asked about AARP/senior groups cause those on fixed incomes are going to get crushed.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-commodity-prices-20101110,0,2532973.story
An extra $1 for a gallon of gas is a blip on my radar but the guy making $6/hour will get reamed.
Cato, you put it out there better than I could’ve — thank you.
Really? Experience at running a state with extensive energy and military needs and contracts?
Yes. I caught his opinion. So what? I don’t like a lot of things he’s said and done. Remember, he’s also the one insulting conservatives by claiming that he’s not like “them,” he’s a compassionate conservative….
What’s your point about Obama being president and she is not? That he’s NOW qualified to speak on macroeconomics? Because so many people were beguiled by a slick talking charlatan enough to vote for him? He has shown no evidence of understanding any economic ideas. He is pushing agendas that will kill economic development. He is penalizing success. Population size determines competency? Soooo, Maxine Waters is competent to run the nation? Someone from North Dakota shouldn’t run for President?
@Cato the Elder
Cato, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE,
give some general advice on what to do with an orphan 401K? Where should one put it? Or where can I get some advice on that?
My instinct is to find something that invests in commodities. Heck, I’m even thinking of switching some of it to gold.
Moon, you have my permission to give him my email.
Cato, if you don’t want to do it here, please email me.
We don’t quit4 follow what you’re saying, but we get the gist that the fit is going to hit the shan.
“but I can tell that when you print money to buy your own debt, something is wrong.”
A snake eating it’s own tail.
@Cargosquid
You need to sit down and talk to an honest to God CFA or CFP. I don’t do financial planning, I’m a shoot and move guy.
Off the top of my head you could roll it into an IRA and start actively managing it. A lot of the retail brokerages will allow you to paper trade (as in, not with real money) so you can make mistakes without taking any pain. But again, talk to a chartered professional who does long term planning for a living before you do anything.
Also, I’m not calling for the apocalypse. I’m just pointing out that the bottom 95% are getting screwed by Fed policy.
Repeating here….there are many different opinions out there. Unlike Sarah Palin, I am not qualified to speak on macro economics. Neither is she. She offers nothing positive. She only bitches, shrieks and criticizes without offering solutions.
I just want her to STFU. It is perhaps the shrieking that I find most offensive.
I guess all the little people have been told. Cato, somehow I feel like we have all been reduced to being children of a lesser God.
I didn’t mean it like that, Moon. It’s just that commodity inflation disproportionately hurts the people who have the least money to spend. I think we can agree that a policy which puts the screws to the bottom 95% isn’t a long term positive for the country.
Cargo, I would roll over the orphaned 401k to an IRA. Usually a bank has an investment person. I know my bank does which is BB&T.
IRA’s have fewer rules than a 401K.
I have no financial experience other than your basic consumer but that would be my suggestion. Most banks now have different investment models like agressive, conservative and also there are those retirement oriented IRAs based on how soon you plan to retire.
Cato, on the other hand, neither is letting the economy flouder with no govt. intervention like more than one person on here wanted to happen. I am a great believer in happy mediums.
Did you see the GM IPO announcement? The shares are less expensive than I thought they would be but still a little higher than I want to spend. I think I will just stick with F.
Moon,
Yelling “STOP” when you see an oncoming crash IS doing something. So is telling someone to “STOP DIGGING.” when they are trying to get out of a hole.
@Cato the Elder
Cato, my fear is that these folks at Dean Foods may not have fully factored in the “Sarah Palin is a poopie-head” variable. Once any trained economist, be they followers of Keynes, von Hayek, Engels, Burke, or Freidman, considers the “Sarah Palin is a dumb-dumb-face” factor, he sees the inverse relationship between rising commodity prices and Sarah Palin’s doo-doo-ness.
Uh-Oh, the simple mention of an Austrian economist must throw you into moderation around here! 🙂
“neither is letting the economy flounder with no govt. intervention”
So, letting it flounder because of gov’t intervention is better?
I have made it no secret that I believe that TARP was absolutely necessary to keep us from a free fall. I also believe that some of the other measures were good ideas.
I don’t know Bernanke is on the right track or not. He sure has a lot better credentials to assess the situation than I do. I certainly don’t think that Palin has the skills and background knowledge to assess the situation. But that has never stopped her.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/debt-commission-report-social-security-medicare-_n_781606.html
Ouch. This combined with everything above and I’d hate to be over 60 right about now.
You may be right about Palin Moon but instead of attacking her just because you don’t like her try attacking what she is actually saying. I still have yet to hear you explain exactly why you disagree with her other than you don’t think she is qualified.
Once you do that then maybe there can be a discussion but as it stands it seems like your just attacking her because you don’t like her. Please correct me if I’m wrong…
Marin, those things are phased in. Take another look.
For what it’s worth, I think you should be more worried about Kristi Noem than Sarah Palin. Look for the left to zero in on her any day now… 🙂
And Kristi Noem bashing starts in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
Huh, not yet, I suppose it’s a bit early. Just wait, it’s a comin’
Understood. Just pointing out that if for those in the later 1/3rd of life there is a bullseye on them.
I don’t think the Commission goes far enough but it’ll get killed. I’m sure of it.