You should have gotten both of Captain Obvious's memos—one titled “Arab Spring,” the other going by “#Occupy Wall Street.” Just the very fact that we are having this conversation clearly indicates that your complete lack and understanding is not limited to just our economy.
Let me spell this out for you.
The memos indicate that 99% of the world has had enough with the Federal Reserve system and its “leadership”. Together the two account for 99% of the world’s ills.
Former Comptroller General David Walker said: “The fourth and most serious of all [of America’s deficits] is our leadership deficit.” Bernanke, you and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan are poster boys for personifying America’s “Most Serious Leadership Deficit.”
That’s really putting it too kindly though. After all, you helped create the Second Great Depression, so we don't have to be polite about this, and I'm not going to be.
The Millennials—those 75 million kids our son’s and daughter’s age; that majority protesting; the ones camping out in tents with sleeping bags on cold hard cement sidewalks; the kids and old farts occupying our city parks; little unarmed girls that are our children’s age obeying the law only to get pepper-sprayed in their eyes by oppressive law-breaking New York City Cops; kids carrying around signs that read “End the Fed” and “Osama Bin Bernanke”;those born between 1977-1998 that now face an unemployment rate between 37%-50%, most of who have student loans up the proverbial.
I don’t think they like you.
Why? It’s very simple—Congress gave the Fed two mandates in 1913:
- To Maintain Maximum Employment.
- To Maintain Stable Prices.
Two mandates, but you and Greenspan added a third—worshiping the banks. By doing so you’ve royally screwed up the first two. You've revealed that the corrupt banksters who own the Federal Reserve are really the gods you worship. (Read The Sander’s Report of the Fed audit here)
As a result, the consumer who contributes to 70% of the economy has become the sacrifice to your evil gods. Without a consumer we’ll all wind up in a living hell.
Let me break it down to three main points:
Point #1: Maximum Employment. We now have a depressionary unemployment rate of 23.1%. The tragically comical part is we have a student of [or do you now call yourself a scholar of] The Great Depression, who refuses to address the real (unadjusted) unemployment rate.
23.1% NOT 9.1%.
You know that it is 23.1%. You just lie about it by using the Bureau of BS Labor Statistics 9.1% numbers!
How can you miss the fact that we have 46,000,000 Americans on food stamps? Many of whom collect in Wal-Marts an hour before midnight creating modern day electronic breadlines. Their carts filled with baby formula for their starving children. At the stroke of midnight their “EBT” cards are refilled and their “benefit” is transferred from the government to the poor by one of the big banks who skims off the top for their “services.” Ironic, after they blew up the economy they now get to profit off the poor who got stuffed with the 10.4++ trillion dollar tab of bailing them out. (Link to Wal-Marts CEO’s description of this.)
Let’s address the substance in Point #3: Housing & Lying before we move onto Point #2: Stable Price Mandate.
Point #3: Housing & Lying. Many financial bloggers have observed and written about your voice crackling or shaking whenever you mention ‘9.1% unemployment’ or just the word ‘unemployment.’
I first noticed the crackling voice phenomena in 2005. On CNBS you were asked if housing was in a bubble. I knew it was. Ron Paul knew back in 2003. I knew because I ran the Hyman Minsky Bubble Checklist and the only “indicator” unchecked was “Revulsion.” Number 7 of 7. Judging by the subprime reset dates we knew that revulsion wasn’t going to be too far down the road.
We were correct.
So there you are on CNBS being asked: “Tell me sir, is housing in a bubble?” And you flat out lie. You, the self-professed “scholar of the Great Depression”, tell Maria Barta-What-Ever-Her-Name-Is (incidentally, whose voice I can’t stand) that, “home prices have never declined on a nationwide basis before.”
BS!
They have. A fourth grader can read the chart below and see that.
The instant you said house prices have never declined on a nationwide basis your voice faltered. It got all feebly. It cracked. Look, I’m a former airline captain, company instructor and check airman with around 15,000 hours. I know what fear sounds like. I know what a weasels voice sounds like when they screw up and try to cover it over. Just because people didn’t go to Harvard or teach at Princeton doesn’t mean they’re stupid and that they can be played for a fool Ben.
Frankly, that whole “Harvard, Princeton, Columbia Card” doesn’t get much mileage after Charles’s fine documentary “Inside Job” where he showed how scholars are now just being paid off for their favorable opinions.
I emailed Pamela Meyer and asked her to look into you. Pamela Meyer did a phenomenal-speech on TED, it was titled: “How to Spot a Liar”.
Her reply totally floored me: “I will take a look at Bernanke....many [emphasis mine] have sent comments similar to yours as well regarding his "tells".”
Many have sent comments.
Many.
If it lies like a rug...
I say, “What else do you lie about?” because I know you were lying about housing. The FY2005 FOMC minutes reveal that the Fed knew housing was in an impending bubble and any idiot who read one book on the Great Depression would have known that housing prices HAVE declined in our nation’s history.
Frankly, any idiot who read one book on the Great Depression would also be capable of recognizing that we’ve entered into the world’s Second Great Depression.
Just curious, are David Walkers’ leadership deficit words ringing loud and clear here?
They should be.
America is suffering. Millions have been foreclosed upon, kids go to bed starving in motels, and tent cities are springing up all over the place. In California they have a school for homeless kids whose parents peddle them to on their bikes. The kids steal food to take to their parents tents. Just how much more Grapes of Wrath-"ish"" can we get when reading the news?
More responsible prime borrowers were hurt than were subprime borrowers because 1 in 6 jobs were housing related and Wall Street sold this stuff to cities, pension funds, and entire countries.
While betting against it.
Who was in charge while all this went down?
Point #2: Stable Prices. You’ve decimated the value of the dollar. Since 1913, our dollar is now worth mere pennies. Over that time we've seen a 2,191.8% increase in inflation. You’ve robbed 2,191.8% from my grandfather, father and I. Perhaps Americans should demand reparations for stripping generations of our families’ wealth?
(By the way, we know it is way worse than 2,191.8%. Enron was more honest about its books than the BLS is with its inflation or unemployment calculations.)
2,191.8%.
If isn't inflation, then what is it?
The BEA and BLS should be abolished and a portion of that money should go to John Williams of Shadow Statistics—who does what those clowns are supposed to do.
You know the problem? You all have NO real world experience. Hell, the E*Trade baby has more trading experience than you momos combined.
Un-effing believable that this has been going on for over 100 years.
Nice job Champ.
I’m going to end it here. I could go on, and on. I could write a book called The Second Grapes of Wrath and in it include all the many ways the Fed hurts and then laughs at decimating the consumer who supports 70% of our economy.
I could reveal how the Fed laughs about exploiting workers through globalization. I could expose how the Fed laughs and jokes about which political party likes to borrow more money. But, I’ll stop here. Maybe if I hear from a good agent I’ll do a book.
In Summary: Bernanke if you had 1 one trillionth of a leadership gene you’d have taken command in 2008 and said:
- We have bad news: We have a major structural problem. But we are Americans so we have good news: We have a fix for it. For now, we’re bailing out the banks to keep credit from freezing up.
- But, we’re bailing out the banks vis-a-vis underwater homeowners in order to prevent 1 in 6 jobs related to housing from cratering and becoming 23.1% unemployment which puts 46 million Americans on an electronic breadline at Wal-Mart.
- We’ve identified structural problems in the economy that were caused by mistakes made by the Federal Reserve.
- Alan created too much cheap money, he muzzled Brooksley Born when she wanted to regulate derivatives, and he also helped get rid of Glass-Steagall. All this contributed to the mess. We’ve had Fed members who took money and wrote BS reports so lawmakers would look favorably at what were really dangerous instruments that let bankers shoot up.
- He failed to recognize a perverse incentive structure where CEOs with a fleet of personal jets, fancy yachts, and a dozen homes had no concern over the financial products they sold.
- Politicians have fed off the system buying votes with borrowed Federal Reserve Notes. The bread and circus show is so far gone that it is beyond balancing. Beyond cuts. Beyond repair. We’ve hidden more debt off balance sheet than a million Enron’s could of hoped for. Thus, our new dollar will be revalued to wipe away this debt.
- The root cause of our money system is that money is loaned into existence. This means that each second more money must be created in order to service the interest or the system implodes. It causes bubbles. It creates boom to bust cycles. It creates inflation which is outright theft. While no system is perfect, our new system will be better.
- Exponential growth is not sustainable. Our economy is nothing more than digging up finite resources and selling them. With 7 billion people on this planet 3% compounding growth each year is not sustainable. We’re seeing this now in higher oil prices. The difference between global oil production and global oil consumption is an economic resource canary.
- We must get well-paying manufacturing jobs back from China.
- We must create a few “Manhattan” projects to redefine banking and to promote a stable sustainable economy.
But you’re not a dynamic leader.
You’re a clown, and you’ll wait until Europe or some other force breaks the camel’s back and then declare, like the housing bubble, no one could have seen this coming.
