This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Ben Bernanke Speaks - Live Webcast
The Chairman is about to take the lectern to discuss bank structure and competition at the SIFI conference at the Chicago Fed. His prepared remarks are likely to be a little less exciting than the Q&A where the world will be watching for the words "buy, buy, buy", "mission accomplished", or "taper". Charles Evans will be his lead out man. Finally, since Bernanke will be discussing shadow banking, or the source of some $30 trillion in shadow money always ignored by Keynesians, Monetarists and Magic Money Tree (MMT) growers, a topic we have discussed over the past three years, here is the TBAC's own summary on how Modern Money really works.
Full prepared text follows:
Monitoring the Financial System
We are now more than four years beyond the most intense phase of the financial crisis, but its legacy remains. Our economy has not yet fully regained the jobs lost in the recession that accompanied the financial near collapse. And our financial system--despite significant healing over the past four years--continues to struggle with the economic, legal, and reputational consequences of the events of 2007 to 2009.
The crisis also engendered major shifts in financial regulatory policy and practice. Not since the Great Depression have we seen such extensive changes in financial regulation as those codified in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) in the United States and, internationally, in the Basel III Accord and a range of other initiatives. This new regulatory framework is still under construction, but the Federal Reserve has already made significant changes to how it conceptualizes and carries out both its regulatory and supervisory role and its responsibility to foster financial stability.
In my remarks today I will discuss the Federal Reserve's efforts in an area that typically gets less attention than the writing and implementation of new rules--namely, our ongoing monitoring of the financial system. Of course, the Fed has always paid close attention to financial markets, for both regulatory and monetary policy purposes. However, in recent years, we have both greatly increased the resources we devote to monitoring and taken a more systematic and intensive approach, led by our Office of Financial Stability Policy and Research and drawing on substantial resources from across the Federal Reserve System. This monitoring informs the policy decisions of both the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee as well as our work with other agencies.
The step-up in our monitoring is motivated importantly by a shift in financial regulation and supervision toward a more macroprudential, or systemic, approach, supplementing our traditional microprudential perspective focused primarily on the health of individual institutions and markets. In the spirit of this more systemic approach to oversight, the Dodd-Frank Act created the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which is comprised of the heads of a number of federal and state regulatory agencies. The FSOC has fostered greater interaction among financial regulatory agencies as well as a sense of common responsibility for overall financial stability. Council members regularly discuss risks to financial stability and produce an annual report, which reviews potential risks and recommends ways to mitigate them.1 The Federal Reserve's broad-based monitoring efforts have been essential for promoting a close and well-informed collaboration with other FSOC members.
A Focus on Vulnerabilities
Ongoing monitoring of the financial system is vital to the macroprudential approach to regulation. Systemic risks can only be defused if they are first identified. That said, it is reasonable to ask whether systemic risks can in fact be reliably identified in advance; after all, neither the Federal Reserve nor economists in general predicted the past crisis. To respond to this point, I will distinguish, as I have elsewhere, between triggers and vulnerabilities.2 The triggers of any crisis are the particular events that touch off the crisis--the proximate causes, if you will. For the 2007-09 crisis, a prominent trigger was the losses suffered by holders of subprime mortgages. In contrast, the vulnerabilities associated with a crisis are preexisting features of the financial system that amplify and propagate the initial shocks. Examples of vulnerabilities include high levels of leverage, maturity transformation, interconnectedness, and complexity, all of which have the potential to magnify shocks to the financial system. Absent vulnerabilities, triggers might produce sizable losses to certain firms, investors, or asset classes but would generally not lead to full-blown financial crises; the collapse of the relatively small market for subprime mortgages, for example, would not have been nearly as consequential without preexisting fragilities in securitization practices and short-term funding markets which greatly increased its impact. Of course, monitoring can and does attempt to identify potential triggers--indications of an asset bubble, for example--but shocks of one kind or another are inevitable, so identifying and addressing vulnerabilities is key to ensuring that the financial system overall is robust. Moreover, attempts to address specific vulnerabilities can be supplemented by broader measures--such as requiring banks to hold more capital and liquidity--that make the system more resilient to a range of shocks.
Two other related points motivate our increased monitoring. The first is that the financial system is dynamic and evolving not only because of innovation and the changing needs of the economy, but also because financial activities tend to migrate from more-regulated to less-regulated sectors. An innovative feature of the Dodd-Frank Act is that it includes mechanisms to permit the regulatory system, at least in some circumstances, to adapt to such changes. For example, the act gives the FSOC powers to designate systemically important institutions, market utilities, and activities for additional oversight. Such designation is essentially a determination that an institution or activity creates or exacerbates a vulnerability of the financial system, a determination that can only be made with comprehensive monitoring and analysis.
The second motivation for more intensive monitoring is the apparent tendency for financial market participants to take greater risks when macro conditions are relatively stable. Indeed, it may be that prolonged economic stability is a double-edged sword. To be sure, a favorable overall environment reduces credit risk and strengthens balance sheets, all else being equal, but it could also reduce the incentives for market participants to take reasonable precautions, which may lead in turn to a buildup of financial vulnerabilities. Probably our best defense against complacency during extended periods of calm is careful monitoring for signs of emerging vulnerabilities and, where appropriate, the development of macroprudential and other policy tools that can be used to address them.
The Federal Reserve's Financial Stability Monitoring Program
So, what specifically does the Federal Reserve monitor? In the remainder of my remarks, I'll highlight and discuss four components of the financial system that are among those we follow most closely: systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs), shadow banking, asset markets, and the nonfinancial sector.3
Systemically Important Financial Institutions
SIFIs are financial firms whose distress or failure has the potential to create broader financial instability sufficient to inflict meaningful damage on the real economy. SIFIs tend to be large, but size is not the only factor used to determine whether a firm is systemically important; other factors include the firm's interconnectedness with the rest of the financial system, the complexity and opacity of its operations, the nature and extent of its risk-taking, its use of leverage, its reliance on short-term wholesale funding, and the extent of its cross-border operations. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the largest bank holding companies are treated as SIFIs; in addition, as I mentioned, the act gives the FSOC the power to designate individual nonbank financial companies as systemically important. This designation process is under way.
Dodd-Frank also establishes a framework for subjecting SIFIs to comprehensive supervisory oversight and enhanced prudential standards. For all such companies, the Federal Reserve will have access to confidential supervisory information and will monitor standard indicators such as regulatory capital, leverage, and funding mix. However, some of these measures, such as regulatory capital ratios, tend to be backward looking and thus may be slow to flag unexpected, rapid changes in the condition of a firm. Accordingly, we supplement the more standard measures with other types of information.
One valuable source of supplementary information is stress testing. Regular, comprehensive stress tests are an increasingly important component of the Federal Reserve's supervisory toolkit, having been used in our assessment of large bank holding companies since 2009.4 To administer a stress test, supervisors first construct a hypothetical scenario that assumes a set of highly adverse economic and financial developments--for example, a deep recession combined with sharp declines in the prices of houses and other assets. The tested firms and their supervisors then independently estimate firms' projected losses, revenues, and capital under the hypothetical scenario, and the results are publicly disclosed. Firms are evaluated both on their post-stress capital levels and on their ability to analyze their exposures and capital needs.
Stress testing provides a number of advantages over more-standard approaches to assessing capital adequacy. First, measures of capital based on stress tests are both more forward looking and more robust to "tail risk"--that is, to extremely adverse developments of the sort most likely to foster broad-based financial instability. Second, because the Federal Reserve conducts stress tests simultaneously on the major institutions it supervises, the results can be used both for comparative analyses across firms and to judge the collective susceptibility of major financial institutions to certain types of shocks. Indeed, comparative reviews of large financial institutions have become an increasingly important part of the Federal Reserve's supervisory toolkit more generally. Third, the disclosure of stress-test results, which increased investor confidence during the crisis, can also strengthen market discipline in normal times. The stress tests thus provide critical information about key financial institutions while also forcing the firms to improve their ability to measure and manage their risk exposures.
Stress-testing techniques can also be used in more-focused assessments of the banking sector's vulnerability to specific risks not captured in the main scenario, such as liquidity risk or interest rate risk. Like comprehensive stress tests, such focused exercises are an important element of our supervision of SIFIs. For example, supervisors are collecting detailed data on liquidity that help them compare firms' susceptibilities to various types of funding stresses and to evaluate firms' strategies for managing their liquidity. Supervisors also are working with firms to assess how profitability and capital would fare under various stressful interest rate scenarios.
Federal Reserve staff members supplement supervisory and stress-test information with other measures. For example, though supervisors have long appreciated the value of market-based indicators in evaluating the conditions of systemically important firms (or, indeed, any publicly traded firm), our monitoring program uses market information to a much greater degree than in the past. Thus, in addition to standard indicators--such as stock prices and the prices of credit default swaps, which capture market views about individual firms--we use market-based measures of systemic stability derived from recent research. These measures use correlations of asset prices to capture the market's perception of a given firm's potential to destabilize the financial system at a time when the broader financial markets are stressed; other measures estimate the vulnerability of a given firm to disturbances emanating from elsewhere in the system.5 The further development of market-based measures of systemic vulnerabilities and systemic risk is a lively area of research.
Network analysis, yet another promising tool under active development, has the potential to help us better monitor the interconnectedness of financial institutions and markets. Interconnectedness can arise from common holdings of assets or through the exposures of firms to their counterparties. Network measures rely on concepts used in engineering, communications, and neuroscience to map linkages among financial firms and market activities. The goals are to identify key nodes or clusters that could destabilize the system and to simulate how a shock, such as the sudden distress of a firm, could be transmitted and amplified through the network. These tools can also be used to analyze the systemic stability effects of a change in the structure of a network. For example, margin rules affect the sensitivity of firms to the conditions of their counterparties; thus, margin rules affect the likelihood of financial contagion through various firms and markets.
Shadow Banking
Shadow banking, a second area we closely monitor, was an important source of instability during the crisis. Shadow banking comprises various markets and institutions that provide financial intermediation outside the traditional, regulated banking system. Shadow banking includes vehicles for credit intermediation, maturity transformation, liquidity provision, and risk sharing. Such vehicles are typically funded on a largely short-term basis from wholesale sources. In the run-up to the crisis, the shadow banking sector involved a high degree of maturity transformation and leverage. Illiquid loans to households and businesses were securitized, and the tranches of the securitizations with the highest credit ratings were funded by very short-term debt, such as asset-backed commercial paper and repurchase agreements (repos). The short-term funding was in turn provided by institutions, such as money market funds, whose investors expected payment in full on demand and had little tolerance for risk to principal.
As it turned out, the ultimate investors did not fully understand the quality of the assets they were financing. Investors were lulled by triple-A credit ratings and by expected support from sponsoring institutions--support that was, in fact, discretionary and not always provided. When investors lost confidence in the quality of the assets or in the institutions expected to provide support, they ran. Their flight created serious funding pressures throughout the financial system, threatened the solvency of many firms, and inflicted serious damage on the broader economy.
Securities broker-dealers play a central role in many aspects of shadow banking as facilitators of market-based intermediation. To finance their own and their clients' securities holdings, broker-dealers tend to rely on short-term collateralized funding, often in the form of repo agreements with highly risk-averse lenders. The crisis revealed that this funding is potentially quite fragile if lenders have limited capacity to analyze the collateral or counterparty risks associated with short-term secured lending, but rather look at these transactions as nearly risk free. As questions emerged about the nature and value of collateral, worried lenders either greatly increased margin requirements or, more commonly, pulled back entirely. Borrowers unable to meet margin calls and finance their asset holdings were forced to sell, driving down asset prices further and setting off a cycle of deleveraging and further asset liquidation.
To monitor intermediation by broker-dealers, the Federal Reserve in 2010 created a quarterly Senior Credit Officer Opinion Survey on Dealer Financing Terms, which asks dealers about the credit they provide.6 Modeled on the long-established Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey on Bank Lending Practices sent to commercial banks, the survey of senior credit officers at dealers tracks conditions in markets such as those for securities financing, prime brokerage, and derivatives trading.7 The credit officer survey is designed to monitor potential vulnerabilities stemming from the greater use of leverage by investors (particularly through lending backed by less-liquid collateral) or increased volumes of maturity transformation. Before the financial crisis, we had only very limited information regarding such trends.
We have other potential sources of information about shadow banking. The Treasury Department's Office of Financial Research and Federal Reserve staff are collaborating to construct data sets on triparty and bilateral repo transactions, which should facilitate the development of better monitoring metrics for repo activity and improve transparency in these markets. We also talk regularly to market participants about developments, paying particular attention to the creation of new financial vehicles that foster greater maturity transformation outside the regulated sector, provide funding for less-liquid assets, or transform risks from forms that are more easily measured to forms that are more opaque.
A fair summary is that, while the shadow banking sector is smaller today than before the crisis and some of its least stable components have either disappeared or been reformed, regulators and the private sector need to address remaining vulnerabilities. For example, although money market funds were strengthened by reforms undertaken by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2010, the possibility of a run on these funds remains--for instance, if a fund should "break the buck," or report a net asset value below 99.5 cents, as the Reserve Primary Fund did in 2008. The risk is increased by the fact that the Treasury no longer has the power to guarantee investors' holdings in money funds, an authority that was critical for stopping the 2008 run. In November 2012, the FSOC proposed for public comment some alternative approaches for the reform of money funds. The SEC is currently considering these and other possible steps.
With respect to the triparty repo platform, progress has been made in reducing the amount of intraday credit extended by the clearing banks in the course of the daily settlement process, and, as additional enhancements are made, the extension of such credit should be largely eliminated by the end of 2014. However, important risks remain in the short-term wholesale funding markets. One of the key risks is how the system would respond to the failure of a broker-dealer or other major borrower. The Dodd-Frank Act has provided important additional tools to deal with this vulnerability, notably the provisions that facilitate an orderly resolution of a broker-dealer or a broker-dealer holding company whose imminent failure poses a systemic risk. But, as highlighted in the FSOC's most recent annual report, more work is needed to better prepare investors and other market participants to deal with the potential consequences of a default by a large participant in the repo market.8
Asset Markets
Asset markets are a third area that we closely monitor. We follow developments in markets for a wide range of assets, including public and private fixed-income instruments, corporate equities, real estate, commodities, and structured credit products, among others. Foreign as well as domestic markets receive close attention, as do global linkages, such as the effects of the ongoing European fiscal and banking problems on U.S. markets.
Not surprisingly, we try to identify unusual patterns in valuations, such as historically high or low ratios of prices to earnings in equity markets. We use a variety of models and methods; for example, we use empirical models of default risk and risk premiums to analyze credit spreads in corporate bond markets. These assessments are complemented by other information, including measures of volumes, liquidity, and market functioning, as well as intelligence gleaned from market participants and outside analysts. In light of the current low interest rate environment, we are watching particularly closely for instances of "reaching for yield" and other forms of excessive risk-taking, which may affect asset prices and their relationships with fundamentals. It is worth emphasizing that looking for historically unusual patterns or relationships in asset prices can be useful even if you believe that asset markets are generally efficient in setting prices. For the purpose of safeguarding financial stability, we are less concerned about whether a given asset price is justified in some average sense than in the possibility of a sharp move. Asset prices that are far from historically normal levels would seem to be more susceptible to such destabilizing moves.
From a financial stability perspective, however, the assessment of asset valuations is only the first step of the analysis. Also to be considered are factors such as the leverage and degree of maturity mismatch being used by the holders of the asset, the liquidity of the asset, and the sensitivity of the asset's value to changes in broad financial conditions. Differences in these factors help explain why the correction in equity markets in 2000 and 2001 did not induce widespread systemic disruptions, while the collapse in house prices and in the quality of mortgage credit during the 2007-09 crisis had much more far-reaching effects: The losses from the stock market declines in 2000 and 2001 were widely diffused, while mortgage losses were concentrated--and, through various financial instruments, amplified--in critical parts of the financial system, resulting ultimately in panic, asset fire sales, and the collapse of credit markets.
Nonfinancial Sector
Our financial stability monitoring extends to the nonfinancial sector, including households and businesses. Research has identified excessive growth in credit and leverage in the private nonfinancial sector as potential indicators of systemic risk.9 Highly leveraged or financially fragile households and businesses are less able to withstand adverse changes in income or wealth, including those brought about by deteriorating conditions in financial and credit markets. A highly leveraged economy is also more prone to so-called financial accelerator effects, as when financially stressed firms are forced to lay off workers who, in turn, lacking financial reserves, sharply cut their own spending. Financial stress in the nonfinancial sector--for example, higher default rates on mortgages or corporate debt--can also damage financial institutions, creating a potential adverse feedback loop as they reduce the availability of credit and shed assets to conserve capital, thereby further weakening the financial positions of households and firms.
The vulnerabilities of the nonfinancial sector can potentially be captured by both stock measures (such as wealth and leverage) and flow measures (such as the ratio of debt service to income). Sector-wide data are available from a number of sources, importantly the Federal Reserve's flow of funds accounts, which is a set of aggregate integrated financial accounts that measures sources and uses of funds for major sectors as well as for the economy as a whole.10 These accounts allow us to trace the flow of credit from its sources, such as banks or wholesale funding markets, to the household and business sectors that receive it.
The Federal Reserve also now monitors detailed consumer- and business-level data suited for picking up changes in the nature of borrowing and lending, as well as for tracking financial conditions of those most exposed to a cyclical downturn or a reversal of fortunes. For example, during the housing boom, the aggregate data accurately showed the outsized pace of home mortgage borrowing, but it could not reveal the pervasive deterioration in underwriting that implied a substantial increase in the underlying credit risk from that activity.11 More recently, gains in household net worth have been concentrated among wealthier households, while many households in the middle or lower parts of the distribution have experienced declines in wealth since the crisis. Moreover, many homeowners remain "underwater," with their homes worth less than the principal balances on their mortgages. Thus, more detailed information clarifies that many households remain more financially fragile than might be inferred from the aggregate statistics alone.
Conclusion
In closing, let me reiterate that while the effective regulation and supervision of individual financial institutions will always be crucial to ensuring a well-functioning financial system, the Federal Reserve is moving toward a more systemic approach that also pays close attention to the vulnerabilities of the financial system as a whole. Toward that end, we are pursuing an active program of financial monitoring, supported by expanded research and data collection, often undertaken in conjunction with other U.S. financial regulatory agencies. Our stepped-up monitoring and analysis is already providing important information for the Board and the Federal Open Market Committee as well as for the broader regulatory community. We will continue to work toward improving our ability to detect and address vulnerabilities in our financial system.
- 16025 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


PM gang bang day--Ben as the abusive rapist with the biggest, driest dick, saved for last. Fuck Bernanke, LOL.
Not a good day for Obama.....ABC just broke ranks on Benghazi.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/exclusive-benghazi-talking-points-underwent-12-revisions-scrubbed-of-terror-references/
The families of the fallen are not going away quietly.
Indeed, just wait until the guillotines come out, people will really start talking then.
Marketwatch 8:25AM: “Krugman: No bubble, just irrational Bernanke hatred”
Whenever I see or hear Krugman’s name, the first thing that comes to mind is a passage from Michael Lewis’s ‘Liar’s Poker’ regarding naïve people in real world markets:
Did I grow more comfortable on the trading floor over time? I suppose. But even when I had established myself within the firm, I got the creepy crawlies each time I walked out onto 41. I could see certain developments in myself, however. One day I was out playing the Invisible Man, feeling the warmth of the whale sh!t and thinking that no one in life was lower than I. Onto the floor rushed a member of the corporate finance department wearing his jacket like a badge of dishonor. Nobody wore a jacket on the floor. It must have been his first trip down from his glass box office, and he looked one way and then the other in the midst of the bedlam. Someone bumped into him and sharply told him to watch his step. Watch his step? But he was just standing there. You could see him thinking that the gaze of the whole world was on him. And he started to panic, like a stage actor who had forgotten his lines. He'd probably forgotten why he'd come in the first place. And he left. Then I thought a nasty thought. A terrible thought. A truly unforgivable thought. But it showed I was coming along. What a wimp, I thought. He doesn't have a fu<king clue.
Liberals can't not use the word "hate". They seem to know so much about it. Bullying too....
Irrational Bernanke hatred is lead to irrational break face of Paul Krugman. But break Krugman face, good is for local economy, employ triage team, triage team pay bills, buy coffee at Starbuck, and so on. So why not is break face of Krugman AND Bernanke and enjoy full economic recovery!?
Polomium is less messy. (But you already knew that, didn't you Boris)
get the fucking hook
http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/05/10/irrational-bernanke-hatred-contributes-to-bond-bubble-talk-says-krugman/
precious.. one student of the Tunisian boy lover defending another
Next Jew will be the same as the last two Jews.
Is the Pope Catholic?
After listening to berganske I got incredibly happy intellectually because they are starting to do what I have been asking them since 2009, and that is to use engineering and bioengineering tools to monitor the market and make decisions, they are getting there, as you can see in the speach. But they still don't comprehend the danger of what they are doing, they will very soon, hopefully before the send the whole house of cards down. For now they are using the tools to attempt the impossible and that is to control the feedback loops. Their incorrect thinking from our (engineers that know control theory and modeling of non-linear systems) is expressed in the phrase I reproduce below. They think that feedback loops "appear" due to events or actions. That is incorrect and would lead you to nuclear plants going critical every day if engineers thought that way. Feedback loops are ALWAYS there, the only thing that changes is the importance that they take on the system behaviour. From that alone (and many other things that I don't want to bother everybody with), it seems to me that whether his intentions are good or bad, which I hope that despite your position against him (which is mine too), is a different topic from his technical prowess in controlling the world economic stability.
Here is what he said that reveals wrong thinking: "... A highly leveraged economy is also more prone to so-called financial accelerator effects, as when financially stressed firms are forced to lay off workers who, in turn, lacking financial reserves, sharply cut their own spending. Financial stress in the nonfinancial sector--for example, higher default rates on mortgages or corporate debt--can also damage financial institutions, creating a potential adverse feedback loop as they reduce the availability of credit and shed assets to conserve capital, thereby further weakening the financial positions of households and firms. ..."
Until next time,
Engineer
Note: congrats to all of you that wrote so fast about what he said, it took me this long to analyze it and make a comment. I am getting slower...
Don't sell yourself short, Engineer. I don't see much on the order of real 'analysis' prior to your post. I appreciate your effort and insight!
On your feedback loop theory, you are absolutely correct. The laws of gravity prevail eventually, and all of the balls fall back to earth.
A great analogy is the complex system known as the nuclear reactor. Chernobyl was based on a design called RBMK which was unusual for nuke design because of a positive void coefficient (highly unorthodox and very dangerous). Briefly, it meant that air bubbles in the reactor would cause increased reaction-rate (through a positive feedback loop) rather than reduced reaction-rate. In Western reactors there is a reduced reaction due to bubbles as a result of a negative void coefficient built into the inherent moderator engineering and design.
So you have reactors with positive feedback loops (Chernobyl) and reactors with negative feedback loops (Western). Which one resulted in the worst nuke accident in history and the only type 7 accident until 2011?
Positive feedback loops eventually come up to bite you on the butt. And complex systems work until they don't.
Unfortunately most of what the bernanQE says to the public is dishonest & misleading, even if words are spoken that reflect true facts (today they did not).
What's actually afoot is that feedback loops are all under control within the fiat system because any part can be stopped at any time and if it isn't it's an intentional act.
Further, feedback loops can be connected to each other to cancel each other out if desired. This is used frequently, behind the scenes, and it's not for purpose of stability.
In bookie circles in the mob this is called the skim, this is where a little is shaved off the top OTHER than the much more obvious things like pork-barrel bribes and HFT's.
Bank competition. That's a real howler, Ben.
What's next, unicorn farts as collateral or spinning straw into gold?
Gold fillings are less messy (but you already knew that, didn't you Kaiser)
The Jews should be "affirmative actioned" into insignificance.
Tribalism has consequences.
Except if thief is carry pliers.
Love you guys! Maybe the end really is coming for the sham-masters: There is a movie to be released soon (you can watch the trailer @houstonpress.com) called Assault On Wall Street. It looks like a big budget production in which a low-level Wall Street employee realizes he's working for the enemy and takes up arms against them! Predictive programming?
yes, here's another..."OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXNQA3Y5CSw
I'm still watchin rollover 1981 re reruns.
Boris is keep polonium in refrigerator, but is make funny taste to other food so cannot is recommend.
ho ho ho!
is put on TV for extra dollar to economy, make recovery-er!
delete
Liberals can't not use the word "hate". They seem to know so much about it. Bullying too....
My libtard neighbor, who is a 5th grade teacher, asked me the other day during casual neighborhood conversation what I was going to teach my 5 y/o son, now that he's starting kindergarten, when it comes to dealing with bullies. I told her I'm teaching him to kick the kid in the nuts, punch him in the throat, then go back to playing.
She was mortified. I couldn't stop smiling. My wife doesn't like it when I talk to the neighbors.
I feel more and more detached from the sheeple's world everyday.
can i sit during q&a, or do i have to remain kneeling?
Official FOMC kneepads are available at the door for $22.99 (or an ounce of physical silver)
"Irrational Bernanke hatred"
This may have something to do with Bernanke corrupting virtually all remaining market pricing mechanisms, socializing bankster losses and destroying the economy.
Yikes, no wonder I never look at Marketwatch:
"I love it. The Cult of Irrational Haters are squirming like greased pigs. They just can't stand the idea that Bernanke and Obama are doing the rights things and that the economic outlook is improving (that is why stocks are rising). Cognitive dissonance is making their heads explode. "
Bob Iger taking that AIPAC money again?
Off topic, but I bet you this lady wishes she had a 3D printed gun this morning:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22478913
Meanwhile in Japan they are scared of macaque monkeys. Everyone has to run inside terrified.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41233405/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/j...
Meanwhile there was a cougar sighted in my neighborhood in the last few weeks... But who needs firearms? The gov't will always be there to protect you!
Ben fuckin ghazi.. would bring down the Obaaaamaa crime family, if America was'nt a bunch of apethetic, tv watchin, in debt up to their ass, morans...
Amerika is intellectual lazy, perpetual uncurious, addicted to adderal and energy drink.
You left out ritalin and crack. Meth fiends don't live long enough to be proper addicts, but lets give them "honorable" mention.
Russia is also have crack and meth, but not food stamp.
its not so much they are morons, a point i agree with....but i think what you are seeing is how effective the mind control is...usa usa usa ....
usa usa usa indeed ... a form of stockholm syndrome & mindcontrol merged to bring you the complacent wage slave..
That link has been scrubbed. They still have the headline on the main site but the link on the main site doesn't go anywhere either. Hmmm???
The link is back online. Good article by ABC. Is it possible that the 4th estate finally realizes they are part of the problem???
The fourth estate does what it's told but that just begs the question of why seamless wall of denial is breaking now.
Man, if a political shitstorm unleashes on ObaMao, watch the hell out!
The schaudenfreud is putting a big smile on my face.
The words that make Jim Cramer's nipples hard.
and his criticism soft
Well played Davey.
Latest on Benghazi Cover Up...
http://youtu.be/xdlfugzcdno
Check out the market reaction from this economist after Bernanke nervously spoke. LOL!
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/nervous-bernanke-warns-of-excessive-risk-dollar-rises-commodities-plunge/
STFU, Bernanke, you candy butthead!
You, Greenspan and Marty Feldstein (and Maurice Greenberg, and Peter G. Peterson, and everyone in the Rockefeller family) should all be in chains by this time.
Check out the market reaction from this economist after Bernanke nervously spoke. LOL!
Mr.Bernank... could you please tell us your year end target for the S&P? Should I buy the fucking dip or has your target been hit? And after you answer the questions I have a follow up statement......FUCK YOU BERNANK!
Can someone ask this bald headed prick if he can have his nephew's t-ball game moved in August so he can attend Jackson hole? Seriously, can someone ask what his "scheduling conflict" is?
this is a strategic no-show, nothing else, it is to telegraph to everyone that he is winding down his tenure. That way there can be no interpretation of any actual words. It is also his way of saying mission accomplished and a silent way of saying there will be NO MORE additional QE's since the world has figured out how to play the game and all GS players are in place.
http://grooveshark.com/s/Howard+Johnson+s+Got+His+Ho+Jo+Working/3z07MY?s...
.
Howard Johnson got his ho-jo working.
he will probably reassure all his fucking asshole banker friends on wall st that he will not stop qe at all, and if anything will increase it.
he will also say how inflation is not a concern in the least bit, and this printing is the greatest thing for the economy.
fuck u bernanke, may u and obama suffer big time, all u guys do is steal our money, fuck u both
STFU U POS
OT
Help END THE FED and spread awareness.
There's a member of our community that needs a bit of help to get his project completed and I am trying to help him get to the finish line. I think you all know Bill Still from The Money Masters and The secret of Oz. His latest project 'Jekyll Island - the documentary' is nearly finished and he needs only 4k to wrap it up. I would ask that anyone that wants to see this work completed and spread to the largest possible audience to make a small contribution to the kickstarter campaign that he has posted. His deadline is this Sunday night and it would be great to have some contributions flow in from fight club, even greater if we could help him achieve his goal.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/191063619/jekyll-island-the-documentary
Even if you can spare $5 - $20 that is a huge donation and would help Mr. Still get to complete his masterpiece. If you can spare more then $24 FANTASTIC he will give you some decent swag for your contribution. T-shirts, signed DVDs, posters etc.. I am going to post this a few more times in the coming days so please don't consider it spam or solicitation it is for a fantastic cause and this documentary is going to be absolutely stellar!
Yesterday he recieved 2k in pledges to get his requirement from 6k to less then 4k and there is still 3 days left, help Mr. Still spread awareness on the corruption of the Federal Reserve by making a donation.
Bill has made some great films. However, his understanding of banking and economics is screwy. He is against gold entirely, but instead supports a "greenback" standard, whereby the government creates paper money but fixes its supply. Quite bizzarre.
It doesn't matter if the currency is toothpicks, as long as it not allowed to be created infinitely and indefinitely.
You must be a banker...
Government ie treasury creates the money without debt, without interest to the people. The issuance is tightly controlled and linked to the number of the population. Debt free government and bye bye IRS, greenbacks worked so well in the 1800's that the bankers had Lincoln assisinated and the greenback withdrawn, same with JFK and his executive order 11110 which achieved the same goal.
Central Banks, Debt money and Sovereign Debt is the root of all power and corruption. We must attack the root!
As well Bill is not against Gold entirely, gold and silver money alongside greenbacks as competing currencies is a great idea but the peoples money should not be linked to a commodity that bankers are in control of.
You must be a statist...
Why should money be created or controlled by the government?
Statist and ignorant about who really owns all the gold out there. It is in a lot of hands now. The paper contracts are concentrated control but the physical IS NOT at this time.
if such a money management could exist it would exist and it would be the Fed. The reason we have so many problems is because no such collection of humans will exist or ever did. That's what Bill Still is missing. Honest accurate humans DO NOT EXIST who manage money supplies.
Period.
He's running just a tad late. Finishing up a conference call with Baron Von Rothschild. Orders are to prick the equity bubble a tad. Stay physical my friends.
Ahhh the Fiat-colored tie. Nice touch, dick.
It is already clear what Bernanke will say: we may increase or decrease our asset purchases as conditions require.
No shit sherlock.
My bowel movements taper, but my POMOs don't.
That is all.
http://grooveshark.com/s/Get+That+Gasoline+Blues+T+Adams+C+Craig/3YiodM?...
Get that gasoline blues. nrbq
Perhaps Ben Bernanke will repeat the words of Governor Elizabeth Duke from yesterday.
Yes lets pump up that mortgage party end lend to credit impaired borrowers again! After all what could go wrong?
'lend to credit impaired borrowers again'
Isn't it rather disrespectful to talk about our government that way? ;-)
That doesn't apply to us. The credit rating agencies love us, remember, and you know what happens if they don't. *cough* Egan *cough*
Listen to this guy suck the Bernank's cock.
evans is a cock blocker, making sure no one has an opportunity to ask any real questions
Don't watch if you've already eaten breakfast. This cheerleading bullshit is worse the Abe's girl group...at least they aren't fat and bearded fucks!
Caption for the picture:
"Yes, you heard me correctly, two in the stink"
How about:
"Well there are two prices for gold; the one we propagandize for paper instruments and the price of physical."
The Wall Street Shocker
Ben looks a bit sedated. It's like his life's work has been proven a failure and he finds comfort in popping pills. When the beard gets sloppy, we will know the end is near.
Too much botox to hide his worry lines have seeped into his blood stream
I don't think there is anything that could tarnish that beard.
Fucker's a simpleton. Nobody cares what he has to say. We're only waiting for the FBI to haul him off .
oh, how quaint. You actually think they're NOT all complicit. FBI are paid in dollars. Federal Reserve are the source of dollars.
SRSLY?
BenBernaffkey LIES
Is it just me or does Bernanke's ears seem pointier than usual? I call double or demon.
"The crisis also engendered major shifts in financial regulatory policy and practice."
he's got the word order in that sentence all screwed up
Yep. He meant to say "the major shifts in financial regulatory policy and practice also engendered major crises."
Doubleplusgood duckspeak!
"our traditional microprudential perspective focused primarily on the health of individual institutions"
love this part
5.18.13 FEDERAL RESERVE to annouce IPO. After 100 years of fleecing the American Dollar and Public charging you 11:10 on your own money, Ben Bernanke is set to announce an initial stock offering today in the Federal Reserve SYMBOL (FKU)
Yeah...thanks but no thanks. Plan to have a nice, solitary Friday doing laundry and sipping Bombay&Tonic.
You forgot "Bork Bork!"
That is a Swedih ice hockey coach and not an actual word. But it warms my heart that someone remebers the real muppets and not just the modern day meaning of the word...
I love how we are all hanging off his every word.
I hope you meant that as sarcasm fonz. I already know what this guy is going to say by now. I'm just waiting for the day a righteous government imprisons him.
what a douchebag.
the bernank = BIG FUCKING BONE US
"The losses from the stock market declines in 2000 and 2001 were widely diffused, while mortgage losses were concentrated--and, through various financial instruments, amplified--in critical parts of the financial system, resulting ultimately in panic, asset fire sales, and the collapse of credit markets."
yes it was all an over-reaction to real estate
and a town called panic
I thought it was a town called malice?
I thought it was a "Plunger" named Paulson, who should be a Paulson in Prison.
Jam on!
I hold that man responsible for the $41 drop in the price of gold today.
Hey Ben...how has Corzine been doing? Is he arlright? I'm a little worried about him since we haven't seen him for a while.
Why is this feed being put live on CNBC the whole time? Why am I listening to Ben tell me about all different forms of collapse that may be on the horizon? Funny I would think CNBC would dip in and out while Cramer pitches me Chipotle and Priceline. Instead I am listening to Bernank very realistically describe a possible crisis looming.
OT but I called my local dealer.
For gold they want $1525 and they laughed at the thought of having an ASE for sale.
You mean they aren't charging you the paper price? That's just crazy talk. Everybody knows that paper dictates what goes on in the physical markets....Just ask CNBC.
Silver was the funniest. She says "we don't have any but if we get a few they will be $8 over spot". I said "I'll take em"...."well we don't plan on having any".
The end game is to get the prices down to nothing and then settle in fiat. The ponzi collapsed but there is an escape clause and that escape clause is to settle with fiat.
Re Corzine...He'll play an extra 9 this afternoon after a robust lunch in the Grill Room...That's how he's doing...!!
He's sipping cocktails on a South sea island enjoying the money he swindled over the years.
Wait, he's blaming investors for CDS / MBS debacle?
WTF!?!?
And the FED is going to stop shadow banking and the cabal of bankers by "monitoring" and "data gathering"? Insanity!
How about you just GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE ECONOMY AND QUIT WASTING OUR TAX DOLLARS AND MANIPULATING CAPITAL AND SPOILING YOUR BANKING MASTERS WITH YOUR HEROIN INJECTIONS!!!!
It wouldn't hurt for some law enforcement, somewhere, of some stripe to ENFORCE THE RULE OF LAW.
Happy Friday,
We are FUCKED.
... Bernanke has it all under control, all you have to do is look at gold. Everytime "Investors" see Bernake on TV they sell their gold with reckless abandon as "confidence is restored". All Hail the Ponzi.
infestors were wearing short skirts and coming on like gangbusters which aroused the bankers mightily so actually, yes, the infestor hos had "it" coming. typical psychopath blaming the victim.
don't call it "insanity" - that can be a criminal defense. I want him in prison, not the mental house
Lots about what the FED monitors, little about how they manipulate respond to what the FED 'sees'. Destabilizing 'sharp moves' must be stopped ( Soaring GOLD)
blah blah blah more QE, blah blah blah more QE, mind you we could stop or increase if the situation arises.
Oh look, equities and housing are up and empoloyment is getting better.
blah blah blah more QE, blah blah blah more QE. That's all folks.
It means absolutely nothing at all.
DavidC
Binny sez nice soothing words about the market today, while pumping it higher.
where are the 700 Billion TARP funds that the banks got that was supposed to "free up the credit markets" that was really to "foam the runway for the banks"? Why aren't you pricks lending with ZERO interest to the American Public? should be raining up in here...
1
BUBBLES BERNANKE -- doubling down on debt roulette!
He's gonna lose -- and so will WE!
We monitor bubbles. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. "subprime is contained"
LIAR
We have a program to access whether asset classes are higher than normal history....right now we can't keep our eye off of gold, the damn stuff keeps getting more expensive to slam down daily.
sell MSFT!! /s
'We try to identify unusual patterns in valuations, such as historically high or low ratios of prices to earnings in equity markets.'
... then we ignore them and keep printing.
fucking delusional
Tyler's must be pissing themselves laughing, listening to this absolute horseshit!
P.S Fuck you BERNANKE!
There's the pump. Every time Bubble Bernanke get's in front of the camera it's good for at least another 50 points on the DOW to the upside.
fear not, the fed is monitoring the starving and
unemployed segment of the population that may work
but receive no compensation from the monetary distribution
system. if it becomes significant the data collection and
recapitalization of the banks will increase accordingly.
From a nutritional standpoint the least the Fed could do is buy the unemployed some APPL stock.
I don't understand why the homeless and food stamp
recipients etc ... students and working poor etc ..
don't just sell a few hundred shares of their stock
portfolios to pay their own way, then they could
pay off their debts and feed themselves. continue to
support the education, food production and other
industrial complexes.
the fed has the authority to recapitalize the banks
the treasury has the capacity to recapitalize the poor;
balance of moral hazard and doing what is right for the
system is part of an ongoing discussions. we will be
taking a break and the show will continue in a half hour.
.
http://grooveshark.com/s/NRBQ+Puddin+Truck/4djtzR?src=5
pudding truck, nrbq
we looked at the size of lord blankfein's bonus check and decided that it was much too small so we will continue raping and pillaging until things improve...
Every night when I go to sleep, I pray to God this criminal will drop dead.
A crook came before & another will follow. It's the instutution, not who's sitting in the Chair.
'so far so good'-bernankes tombstone. incredible this guys arrogance.
I am building my own drone. I'll be flying at Jackson Hole this year.
j
They need to release a deck of cards first.
Incoming!!!!!!
Can someone explain to me why UST rates are rising with a strengthening dollar?
Fed is naked short the dollar index, and bidding up Ts as usual?
Can you explain to me how the dollar is strengthening? I see no such thing
what is this shit? Draghi is much better!
STFU Bernanke you asshole. Your legacy will be one of misguided stupidity for thinking financial problems can be solved by counterfeiting. Everyone knows about your fascination with the Great Depression and how you believe it could have been avoided if the Fed had printed, and now that you've had your chance to do the experiment yourself all you are doing, and all you are every going to do, is prove that you were wrong. You are an idiot, a loser, and a scourge to America and people all over the world. You are a disgrace and an embarrassment, so STFU!
Er...um...er....uh...erm...err..
DavidC
Bernanke: "You guys need to stop complaining.....didn't you see what we did to Jesus?"
Mr. Bernanke, How many grandmothers have you killed today?
I thought the Bernank had his man Legs Dimon do the dirty work for him?
"In closing, let me reiterate that while the effective regulation and supervision of individual financial institutions will always be crucial to ensuring a well-functioning financial system..."
ROTFL.
"In closing, let me reiterate that while the effective regulation and supervision of individual financial institutions will always be crucial to ensuring a well-functioning financial system, and something which we bureaucrats are entirely incapable of performing, my actions as king money dude will continue to destabilize the economy and create massive asset bubbles, and I don’t give a shit what anybody thinks.”
[puts finger up nose]
There. Finished the thought for him.
Bernanker was part of 1st bubble tries to recover by rewarding the worse of the bubble makers and creating an even bigger bubble...while not allowing prices to lower to affordable levels. Setting droves of people into unemployable waste land. He will go down in history as the poster boy for economic STUPIDTY!
So what does he do when his extensive analysis finds a bubble?
Let me get this right...he is saying people are reaching for yield when he sets it to ZERO? Is he really as DUMB as he seems. The bankers really have a perfect FED chairman...for their ripping off of Americans...especially savers, the young and the old. CRIMINAL!
Get this motherfucker off of my screen. Push this article to the bottom so I do not have to look at his smug fucking mug.