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79% of Americans Want an Audit of the Fed, Only 21% are in Favor of Confirming Bernanke, and Only 20% Think Geithner is Doing a Good Job
79 percent of the American public is in favor of auditing the Fed,
according to a new poll by Rassumussen. Because another 14% are not
sure, that leaves only 7% opposed to an audit. And as Rassumussen, the
support for auditing the Fed is nonpartisan and very widespread:
Unlike many issues tracked by Rasmussen Reports, there is virtually no partisan disagreement on the issue of auditing the Fed.
Similarly,
investors and non-investors are equally supportive of the idea.
Generally speaking, there is overwhelming support for such auditing
across all demographic categories.
Another poll by Rassumussen shows that only 21 percent of Americans favor confirming Bernanke for another term as Fed chairman.
Rasumussen also points out:
Americans
continue to be critical of another key player on the economic front,
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Forty-two percent (42%) of
Americans say Geithner has done a poor job
handling the credit crisis and federal bailout programs. Twenty percent
(20%) rate Geithner’s performance in these areas as good or excellent.
Consumer confidence as measured by the Rasmussen Consumer Index has fallen to a four-month low.
Small Businesses Have Lost Confidence Also
You
might assume that - despite the public's lack of confidence in
Bernanke, Geithner and the economy - at least businesses are confident.
However, as Rassumussen notes:
After three months of gains, the Rasmussen Employment Index
dropped more than four points in November to its lowest level since
July. Just 14% of workers now say their employers are hiring, the
lowest total since February.
Economic confidence
among America's small business owners in the Discover (R) Small
Business Watch(SM) index plummeted in November, as more owners cited
serious concerns about cash flow and saw economic conditions for their
own businesses getting worse.
Specifically, Discover reports:
Economic
confidence among America's small business owners plummeted in November,
as more owners cited serious concerns about cash flow and saw economic
conditions for their own businesses getting worse. The Discover Small
Business Watch index fell 12 points in November to 76.5 from 88.5 in
October...
- The mood of small
business owners generally has soured in November for three straight
years, as economic confidence dropped from October to November in 2007
and 2008. The November 2008 index of 67.5 is the low point for the
Watch since it started in August 2006.
- 52
percent of owners say they have experienced cash flow issues in the
past 90 days, up from 44 percent in October. Forty-one percent of
owners say they have not experienced cash flow issues, which is the
lowest response in this category since the Watch began. The remaining 6
percent said they weren't sure.
- 53
percent of small business owners see conditions getting worse in the
next six months, up from 43 percent in October; while 19 percent report
that conditions are improving, a sharp decline from 29 percent in
October; 23 percent see conditions as the same, and 5 percent weren't
sure.
- 62 percent of small business
owners rate the economy as poor, an increase from 55 percent in
October; 30 percent rate it as fair, and 8 percent say it is good or
excellent.
- 53 percent of small
business owners think the overall economy is getting worse, up from 44
percent in October but still significantly lower than the 69 percent of
owners who felt that way in February 2009, the last time the Watch
index was this low. For November; 28 percent say the economy is getting
better, down from 35 percent in October; 16 percent see it staying the
same, and 3 percent are not sure.
Wall Street
might believe that everything is grand, but small businesses are the
engines which create job growth in America, and if they are
pessimistic, they won't hire.
The Economy Cannot Recover Until Bernanke and Geithner are replaced
As I have repeatedly written, the economy cannot fundamentally stabilize until trust is restored.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wrote that Wall Street's biggest problem right now is the collapse of trust:
The
problem is, government bailouts, subsidies, and insurance aren't really
helping Wall Street. The Street's fundamental problem isn't lack of
capital. It's lack of trust. And without trust, Wall Street might as
well fold up its fancy tents.
A 2005 letter in premier scientific journal Nature reviews the research on trust and economics:
Trust ... plays a key role in economic exchange and politics. In the absence of trust among trading partners, market transactions break down.
In the absence of trust in a country's institutions and leaders,
political legitimacy breaks down. Much recent evidence indicates that
trust contributes to economic, political and social success.
Forbes wrote an article in 2006 entitled "The Economics of Trust". The article summarizes the importance of trust in creating a healthy economy:
Imagine
going to the corner store to buy a carton of milk, only to find that
the refrigerator is locked. When you've persuaded the shopkeeper to
retrieve the milk, you then end up arguing over whether you're going to
hand the money over first, or whether he is going to hand over the
milk. Finally you manage to arrange an elaborate simultaneous exchange.
A little taste of life in a world without trust--now imagine trying to
arrange a mortgage.
Being able to trust people might seem like a
pleasant luxury, but economists are starting to believe that it's
rather more important than that. Trust is about more than whether you
can leave your house unlocked; it is responsible for the difference
between the richest countries and the poorest.
"If you take a
broad enough definition of trust, then it would explain basically all
the difference between the per capita income of the United States and
Somalia," ventures Steve Knack, a senior economist at the World Bank
who has been studying the economics of trust for over a decade. That
suggests that trust is worth $12.4 trillion dollars a year to the U.S.,
which, in case you are wondering, is 99.5% of this country's income. ***
Above all, trust enables people to do business with each other. Doing business is what creates wealth. ***
Economists
distinguish between the personal, informal trust that comes from being
friendly with your neighbors and the impersonal, institutionalized
trust that lets you give your credit card number out over the Internet.
Similarly, market psychologists Richard L. Peterson M.D. and Frank Murtha, Ph.D. wrote in 2008:
Trust is the oil in the engine of capitalism, without it, the engine seizes up.
Confidence is like the gasoline, without it the machine won't move.
Trust
is gone: there is no longer trust between counterparties in the
financial system. Furthermore, confidence is at a low. Investors have
lost their confidence in the ability of shares to provide decent
returns (since they haven't).
And two professors of finance write:
The
drop in trust, we believe, is a major factor behind the deteriorating
economic conditions. To demonstrate its importance, we launched the
Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index. Our first set of
data—based on interviews conducted at the end of December 2008—shows
that between September and December, 52 percent of Americans lost trust
in the banks. Similarly, 65 percent lost trust in the stock market. A
BBB/Gallup poll that surveyed a similar sample of Americans last April
confirms this dramatic drop. At that time, 42 percent of Americans
trusted financial institutions, versus 34 percent in our survey today,
while 53 percent said they trusted U.S. companies, versus just 12
percent today.
As trust declines, so does Americans’
willingness to invest their money in the financial system. Our data
show that trust in the stock market affects people’s intention to buy
stocks, even after accounting for expectations of future stock-market
performance. Similarly, a person’s trust in banks predicts the
likelihood that he will make a run on his bank in a moment of crisis:
25 percent of those who don’t trust banks withdrew their deposits and
stored them as cash last fall, compared with only 3 percent of those
who said they still trusted the banks. Thus, trust in financial
institutions is a key factor for the smooth functioning of capital
markets and, by extension, the economy. Changes in trust matter.
They quote a Nobel laureate economist on the subject:
“Virtually
every commercial transaction has within itself an element of trust,”
writes economist Kenneth Arrow, a Nobel laureate. When we deposit money
in a bank, we trust that it’s safe. When a company orders goods, it
trusts its counterpart to deliver them in good faith. Trust facilitates
transactions because it saves the costs of monitoring and screening; it
is an essential lubricant that greases the wheels of the economic
system.
America knows that Bernanke and Geithner have acted
in the interests of the largest banks, and not done much to help Main
street or the American people.
Trust will not be restored until
Bernanke and Geithner are replaced with people whose loyalty is to the
American public and small businesses, rather than the Wall Street
giants, and whose track record demonstrates that they will put the
entire economy as a whole - rather than the big boys - first.
- advertisements -
Too bad assassination is ruled out on this board.
It would go a long way to restoring trust.
And insure it.
There is no persuasion that will work on the predatory fiends and animals that roam Wall Street, and the underground tunnel to the FED and Treasury.
While some would surely revel in vengeance, I think most just want to see success rewarded and failure to be shown the door.
I am a little confused here. It seems to me the success is unparalleled.Are the Fed and the Bankers not the most successful criminals in history?And their success has been rewarded...by a notable lack of prosecution.
Since neither one of those are possible, then assassination seems the only thing left. And that is possible.
It's time to FIRE the entire US Govt. and CONgress, get rid of the CRIMINAL federal reserve (c'mon - let's call a spade a spade, shall we?) and begin from scratch.
Cooler heads must prevail. The only way to do what you say would be to call a "Constitutional Convention." We don't know what kind of government we would end up with in that case.
The core of the problem is that power corrupts. Tolkien and Plato were right. The invisibility ring will corrupt even the most noble.
Term limits, serious campaign finance reform, lobbying reform and a balanced budget amendment (with tax limits) and currency reform must happen and we must start soon. I disagree a bit with the poster above. I think voting out incumbents does send a message. Vote them out successively if we have to, but vote the bums out NOW.
My biggest disappointment with Obama has been the people he has chosen to surround himself with and his foreign policy. He deserves only one term for those two things alone.
And try them for treason.
+1000000
+++
+ 1000
Enough twaddle from the politco's vine suckers---getting things reformed in DC is like swimming in bubble gum--travel through America and reality will slap you in the face-I did and it wasnt pretty.
Trust can't be restored. Which is why order and control will try to replace it.
79% of the public has no idea what the Fed is or what it does. No, 95%.
That's an interesting comment, and one I find quite plausible.
What I find interesting is that the intital strategy to save the financial system (i.e., lower interest rates to zero, provide capital injections to weak banks, buy worthless securities, and prop up stock market valuations, etc)-- has not only backfired-- but failed to restore the trust in the financial system.
What we are left with is (a) an investor base that does not trust the Fed or the Treasury to do the right thing; and (b) an electorate that is totally distrustful of the "representative" that they themselves put in power.
In most repects, the private sector "gets it". The best way to restore trust in our financial system is to correctly identify the problem (too much debt) and take action to rectify it (deleveraging). Our political and economic "leadership" (if you call it that) are not only doing the opposite-- they are providing a colossal windfall to the players that got us into this mess.
Little wonder you see a lack of trust in our institutions.
Getting back to the point made by Hephasteus-- it is possible that trust CAN be restored. The problem is that it can't be restored without a radical change in policies-- and a lot of near term pain (deleveraging and higher unemployment). No politician wants to go into this election without the opium on "full tilt"-- but it's the opium that is the problem, not the solution.
So given the current state of events... I forsee on the political side, a surge in voting agaist incumbent candidates in 2010-- becuase that's the only way the general public can communicate its level of distrust.
On the economic/financial system side, all one needs to look at is the dollar. If economic policies remain the same, the globe will vote its mistrust in resounding fashion, as it has done so over the past several months. And the issue may be compounded if global investors decide to shun buying U.S. Treasuries in the face of an issuance glut unseen in our lifetimes.
Ironically, it may well be that trust is the only thing that has any lasting value-- only becuase it can be rebuilt quickly if new policies can take hold. Otherwise, we are left with Order and Control as the only viable alternatives.
"I forsee on the political side, a surge in voting agaist incumbent candidates in 2010-- becuase that's the only way the general public can communicate its level of distrust."
Ideally that is what would happen. But I believe the voting public will instead continue their idiotic back and forth bounce between the equally useless and corrupt major parties just as they have done time and again in the past. We need a credible third party choice, but the major parties and the media whores make that extremely difficult.
Incumbent, inschumbent. Voting out incumbents offers no solution at all. The lobbies will have checks in the hands of all-too-willing-to-accept challengers just as fast as you can say "bribe". The point is that there will be no parliamentary solution to this dilema. The system itself is so vilely corrupt that it will find a way to perpetuate itself no matter who the elected actors happen to be. The motivations of those seeking public office today are almost universally self-aggrandising anyway. Only mass demonstrations and economy stopping strikes will bring about the conditions for a wholly new approach, one that will lead, hopefully, to the internment, interrogation and public trial of these slime.
That won't happen either as these people have control of the military and the military they don't control is in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If mass demonstrations break out the jails will fill up and they will start incarcerating on military bases. This is going to get much worse before it gets better and a lot of people will get hurt. It will be much like 1769-1778 ... the Redcoats are coming but not from overseas.
My mother is 89 years old and I pray she will pass from this world before she sees the depths to which this country could very easily descend. Heck, my 21 year old son senses how bad things are - he told me today that he is embarassed by what he sees around him. He is a good, smart and ethical young man.
What I want to know is who are the 7% who do NOT want an audit of the Fed?
The Poles faced similar opposition and consequences in the 1980s from a similarly oppressive regime, one that was thoroughly familiar with using military force to put down peaceful public protest, yet they still succeeded in pulling off the impossible in this way. Corruption so tends to weaken government institutions over time that they become vulnerable to collapse from just a good push. Don't despair. There's hope, but not within the system.
Right. Which is why it can't just be Geithner and Bernanke that go. The rebellion has to be larger. The message sent, more fundamental. Obama needs to be forced to defend the indefensible so the deeper problem can be illuminated and solutions discussed. The President has been firmly behind everything Geithner and Bernanke have said and done, and is hiding behind deceptive propaganda designed to fool us into blindly trusting a system which has been proven to be endemically criminal.
Just today, they went on full court press to claim that the government is saving money on its TARP investment, continuing to foment and drive home the myth that TARP represents the bulk of bailout measures, that the absorbtion of trillions of toxic assets is meaningless, etc. And the lobotomized MSM eats it up and regurgitates it for mass consumption.
The lesson they have learned, and this now includes Democrats in power, is that the truth is irrelevant. The restoration of trust does not depend on it. What they are aiming for instead is synaptic collapse and hopeless surrender. Fury and the truth are our only weapons and they must be wielded against whomever deserves it.
Yes, no sacrificial lambs, please, intended to appease the mass anger currently seathing toward the fetid sewer that are the system's whores and their lobbyist whoremasters. These filth need to go lock, stock and barrel, the whole lot of them. But it is an even greater naivete to trust to parliamentary remedies as the means of bringing about this result. We're too far gone for anything along those lines. Only mass demonstrations and economy stopping strikes have the capability of restoring our democracy at this point.
"Only mass demonstrations and economy stopping strikes have the capability of restoring our democracy at this point"
++++
Absolutely Andrei. We are at that ugly point in history. The system is completely corrupt and broken. Only financial statements will have any effect. Consumption is the one thing they still need from us. We should use it by witholding it.
Consumption is the one thing they still need from us. We should use it by witholding it.
Okay. I'll start... then you...
Never-the-less: You are right.
Well said!