Given the very high level of reserve balances currently in the banking system, the Federal Reserve has ample time to consider the best long-run framework for policy implementation. The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system. Read more...
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Fortunately there are a few members of Congress that realize [Bernanke is making a mess of the U.S. financial system]. One of them is Republican Congressman Ron Paul from Texas. He has created a firestorm by introducing legislation that would subject the Federal Reserve to a comprehensive audit for the first time since it was created. Ron Paul understands that creating money out of thin air is only going to create massive problems. The following is an excerpt from Ron Paul's remarks to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at a recent Congressional hearing.... "The Federal Reserve in collaboration with the giant banks has created the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen. The foolish notion that unlimited amounts of money and credit created out of thin air can provide sustainable economic growth has delivered this crisis to us. Instead of economic growth and stable prices, (The Fed) has given us a system of government and finance that now threatens the world financial and political institutions. Pursuing the same policy of excessive spending, debt expansion and monetary inflation can only compound the problems that prevent the required corrections. Doubling the money supply didn't work, quadrupling it won't work either. Buying up the bad debt of privileged institutions and dumping worthless assets on the American people is morally wrong and economically futile."
One of them is Republican Congressman Ron Paul from Texas. He has created a firestorm by introducing legislation that would subject the Federal Reserve to a comprehensive audit for the first time since it was created. Ron Paul understands that creating money out of thin air is only going to create massive problems. The following is an excerpt from Ron Paul's remarks to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at a recent Congressional hearing....
"The Federal Reserve in collaboration with the giant banks has created the greatest financial crisis the world has ever seen. The foolish notion that unlimited amounts of money and credit created out of thin air can provide sustainable economic growth has delivered this crisis to us. Instead of economic growth and stable prices, (The Fed) has given us a system of government and finance that now threatens the world financial and political institutions. Pursuing the same policy of excessive spending, debt expansion and monetary inflation can only compound the problems that prevent the required corrections. Doubling the money supply didn't work, quadrupling it won't work either. Buying up the bad debt of privileged institutions and dumping worthless assets on the American people is morally wrong and economically futile."
The Right is capturing this issue.
The "creating money out of thin air" bitching is, of course, a goldbug thing, and to the shock of no one he has no idea what he's talking about, because his entire economic education has come from a bunch of closeted, neo-Confederate dipshits at the Mises Institute.
None of this is to say Bernanke isn't a ginormous fuck-up of a Fed chair. But he and his institution are being attacked in this case by people who are projecting their own failures on the Fed.
The Ron Pauls of the world, with their addiction to deregulation, did more to cause this crisis than Ben Bernanke ever could have. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
¹ a nice way of avoiding the word "propaganda"
The Republicans might conceivably be able to take advantage, but they don't seem to have much appetite for it on the issues where it could make some difference (obvious example: TARP). The reason, I suspect, is that they all voted for it. Not that attacking something they've voted for -- or promoting their efforts on something they voted against, as with the stimulus -- is at all beyond them. But it's a complicated argument that's pretty easily swatted down even by the miserable standards of the Democrats.
I could be wrong, though. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
The Ron Pauls of the world, with their addiction to deregulation, did more to cause this crisis than Ben Bernanke ever could have.
I don't think that is entirely fair. The deregulators are quite content with abolishing the welfare state while growing the rest. The Ron Pauls want to cut down the whole structure. No one listens to them. Wait this is important. Someone is wrong on the Internet.
Not quite true. He's popular in Colorado Springs... :-)
