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WSJ Slams Bernanke's Blog Post: "Stop Blaming Everyone" For Your Mistakes
The mainstream is beginning to sound a lot like some fringe blog... A week after the world's largest sovereign wealth fund unleashed a tirade against high-frequency trading and monetary policy distortions, The Wall Street Journal has penned an Op-Ed ramping up its war against Bernanke (and The Fed). What next? Cats living with dogs, mass hysteria, the dead rising from the grave?
Bernanke threw the first punch... and it landed. Now The Wall Street Journal counters with a colossal combination...
It’s nice to know we’re being read, and Thursday’s editorial on “The Slow-Growth Fed” sure got a rise out of Ben Bernanke. The former Federal Reserve Chairman turned blogger turned Pimco adviser wrote to defend the central bank and by implication his policies as innocent of responsibility for subpar economic growth.
This is fun, so let’s parse the Revered One’s arguments. First, Mr. Bernanke accuses us of “forecasting a breakout in inflation” at least since 2006. The central banker is getting into the polemical swing, but he’s wild with that one. We’re not always right. But we’ve been careful not to join some of our friends in predicting inflation from the Fed’s post-crisis policies. We’ve written that we are in uncharted monetary territory with risks and outcomes we lack the foresight to predict.
Our view has been that the Fed’s first round of quantitative easing was necessary to stem the financial panic—and that it worked. We were skeptical of the later bouts of QE, and in our view these have been notably less successful in helping the economy return to robust health. Asset prices are up and the wealthy are better off, but the working stiff is still waiting for the economic payoff.
Mr. Bernanke defends the Fed’s over-optimistic economic growth forecasts by saying the central bank has been overly pessimistic about unemployment. “The relatively rapid decline in unemployment in recent years shows that the critical objective of putting people back to work is being met,” Mr. Bernanke writes.
Now, that’s over-optimism. One reason the jobless rate has fallen to 5.5% is because so many people have left the workforce. The labor participation rate has plunged to 1978 levels during this supposedly splendid expansion. Most economists acknowledge that if the participation rate had stayed constant, the jobless rate would still be close to 8%. The failure to attract the long-term unemployed into the job market is one reason the Fed continues to hold interest rates so low.
Mr. Bernanke’s other defense is the counterfactual that it could have been worse: “It seems clear that the Fed’s aggressive actions are an important reason that job creation in the United States has outstripped that of other industrial countries by a wide margin.”
That’s conveniently unprovable, not least because it doesn’t correct for non-monetary variables. The structural policy impediments to growth in Europe and Japan are far worse than in the U.S., yet Mr. Bernanke implies that the main policy difference is that they waited too long to try QE.
We learned in school that something isn’t a theory if it can’t be tested. Mr. Bernanke’s theory of post-crisis monetary policy is that if it’s working, then do more of it. And if it’s not working, then do more of it too. This isn’t data-driven monetary policy.
Mr. Bernanke also says that we “argue (again) for tighter monetary policy.” If lifting the fed-funds rate to 50 or 100 basis points after six years of near-zero policy is tighter money, then we plead guilty.
But perhaps Ben should consult Stanley Fischer, the Fed’s current vice chairman, who recently said on CNBC that “we are going to be changing monetary policy from the most extremely expansionary we’ve been able to do in all of history to an extremely expansionary monetary policy.” That doesn’t sound like a return to tight money. Lifting rates off zero means beginning an inevitable return to monetary normalcy that lets markets set rates and allocate capital.
We can understand that Mr. Bernanke doesn’t like being tagged with any responsibility for poor economic results. He absolved himself for any mistakes before the financial crisis too. But sooner or later he and the Fed have to stop using the financial crisis as the all-purpose excuse for slow growth. Even President Obama has stopped blaming George W. Bush for everything. Maybe Mr. Bernanke should stop blaming everyone else too.
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Ouch!
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>they picked an old cat lady
Seems to be a lot of that going on in this administration... just my observation.
You know that the society around you consists mostly retards when characters like Bernanke are still at large.
Exactly. "The people" are basically like schoolyard kids, they vent by calling him names in a blog he doesn't read. And then they go quietly homes and continue and support their further enslavement.
They throw them a bone, or a distraction from time to time, and that becomes a pressing issue, or they give them a boogieman to chase, when the real predator is just around the corner.
It doesn't matter who holds what titles.
As long as the monetary system is based on exponential growth, the outcome is guaranteed.
One of the things which convince me we are insane - no one questions perpetual growth although we know this is absurd.
Another is our great leaders have plans which would extinguish life on earth to preserve their government, economic system and power.
They would rather rule over a radioactive ash pile than to submit their egos to reason and compromise.
bernacke simpering, whimpering, schoolboy.
brains of a gnat
It will take another 100 years to correct the wealth disparity that dumbass helped create and he has the gall to say anything publicly. To say nothing of the anti-police stance taking place in communities that have had enough of the bread and circus economy but have no idea how to end it. Public harakiri would be much more appropriate.
The Theories arent working.....and you, just like your shill Krugman....think you are smarter
than the markets..
You give each other degrees, perpetuate the mutual adimiration society, and annoint each other
to control markets...
You cant'. You fail. And the rest of us suffer.
Charlaton ...snake oil salesman.....tent revival elocutionist .....fraud.
What arrogance. The Fed failed, Bernanke failed, accept your part in this mess you single handedly created that is now global.
Theorists... shit shovelers.
He says: What next? Cats living with dogs, mass hysteria, the dead rising from the grave?
I add: ZH gaining the credibility it has EARNED?
Come to think of it...who gives a shit about gaining credibility amongst the main stream mouthpieces.
Carry on...MAKING SOAP.
Enough with the central banker fixation already. These guys’ collective heads are already too big – especially since the cabal of which they all seem to be a part IS the problem. Paying any attention to them is a disservice to humanity.
Let’s get back to basics.
Our society and economic analysis is too focused on financial metrics (inflation, value of the dollar, asset prices, etc.) without being concern about what history has shown is the most reliable metric of economic (and in some ways societal) health – sustainable production of things that people want and need for the benefit of OUR peoples.
We always deride ourselves over the fact that "China owns all of our debt", “we are beholden to China”, etc. - as if this has not been orchestrated by a self-serving globalist cabal and as if it represents some kind of "character defect" of the American people. Quit blaming the victim.
The truth of the matter is, that Europeans (wherever they reside, America, Europe, Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) have been fed a lie by this cabal that somehow we need to allow every other country access to our national product and labor markets without any expectation of reciprocity. Other countries should be able to pollute, abuse labor, rape the environment, predatory price, and flood our labor markets with illegal immigrants at will because of some misguided belief that we "owe it to them" because of past European sins.
The cabal never asked our European peoples if we would trade a promise of prosperity (that never materialized, for us at least) for the loss of our cultures and national identities - because they knew the answer would not support the creation of their New World Order.
The following are examples:
1) We have allowed China to gain virtually unlimited access to all of our product markets (primarily via low tariff + Walmart-like distribution regime), undercut our manufacturers, pollute at will, and enslave their workers - all to the detriment of our manufacturers (that do not have access to these abusive advantages) and workers (whose work conditions and pay must fall to match this lower standard) – all while affording us little or no access to their markets. They should be thanking us, not the other way around. We are supposed to be thanking them for buying our bankster created debt (that we must repay) so that we can by their cheap (and in many cases inferior quality) goods that flood our markets and displace our manufacturing workers? Right.
2) Global Warming - a completely contrived argument, without solid scientific basis, that "conveniently" penalizes all European nations (those that already have, in most cases a responsible environmental policy) so that the third world has the right to pollute at will because they have the right to "special privileges because of past European advantages". Never mind the fact that most of their industries would not exist without access to our markets - using in many cases stolen technology. If you don’t believe me, name a single world-changing product concept that was invented (as opposed to being produced more cheaply) in the third world. Almost all new innovative product concepts have originated in the West.
3) Mass illegal immigration of non-Europeans into formally majority European countries rewards companies with lower labor costs that are prepared to rape the very cultures from which they themselves were born. Do these companies think for one minute that the culture they take for granted, and are throwing away hand over fist for a quick buck (subsidized by what is left of the legal tax-paying European labor pool), will continue to be there once the host European population they feed upon is gone? Dream on.
A change of mindset is required by European peoples if we are ever to throw out the cabal, rise out of the globalist-induced stupor that we are currently in, and regain our collective national productivity and dignity.
I don't think he made a lot of the decisions, same as Old Yellen, they are just the mouthpiece for the Shadow Governance. I also think Greenspan still has some major Influence on the decision process. The Zions on the other end of the Conference Call are the real Controllers, and you can't vote them in or out and the President can't appoint them or get rid of them.
The significance of Bernanke’s leaving is he’s still propagandizing; still pushing the policy. And because he was Fed chairman, he still uses leverage to serve his masters, the owners of the Federal Reserve.
Another sign that the end is nigh.
Partners in crime, in separate interrogation rooms, start the blame game.
LEAVE BERNANKE ALONE! YOU'RE LUCKY HE EVEN PERFORMED FOR YOU SENIOR CITIZENS! HE CAN'T EVEN SECURE A MORTGAGE!
He ain't worth a second place posting. Go on. Get him outta here.
Is there a Jewish angle to Bernanke’s Brookings Institution connection?
Out in the private business world, Bernanke has now made a huge mistake in choosing affiliations such as Brookings. Of course, the Federal Reserve is a private business, and as Fed Chairman Bernanke often was accused of policies more favorable to the owners of the Fed than to the health of the U.S. economy in that the large banks have enjoyed obscene profits all along while taxpayers, savers, retirees, homeowners and others have been forced to suffer the consequences of his money printing.
Brookings is a liberal think tank with significant connections to America’s ruling elite. And in that Brookings has many Jewish executives and experts, and in that Bernanke is Jewish, and America’s key financial elites are Jewish, Bernanke’s choice of Brookings to air his policy pronouncements subject him to severe criticism for bias. And this reflects on the Fed as well.
Unfortunately, think tanks in America have a propensity of being a partner of the Israeli Lobby. Who Controls America writes:
“Of the thirty (30) senior executives of the major think tanks, eighteen(18) are Jews or have Jewish spouses. This is a numerical representation of 60%. Jews are approximately 2% of the U.S. population.* Therefore Jews and spouses of Jews are over-represented among the senior executives of the major think tanks by a factor of 30 times (3,000 percent).” For instance, here’s Brookings:
__________________________________________________________
Brookings Institution Leadership:
Strobe Talbott (Jewish spouse: Brooke Shearer) – President
Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution, is responsible for formulating and setting policies, recommending projects, approving publications and selecting staff. Talbott, whose career spans journalism, government service and academe, is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, with specialties on Europe, Russia, South Asia and nuclear arms control. As deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, Talbott was deeply involved in both the conduct of U.S. policy abroad and the management of executive branch relations with Congress.
Martin S. Indyk - Executive Vice President
Martin S. Indyk, executive vice president of the Brookings Institution, returned to Brookings July 1 after serving as the U.S. special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Previously, Indyk was vice president and director of the Foreign Policy Program and a senior fellow and the founding director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. He served as U.S. ambassador to Israel from 1995-1997 and from 2000-2001.
Indyk served as special assistant to President Clinton and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council (1993-1995) and as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in the U.S. Department of State (1997-2000).
Before entering the U.S. government, Indyk was founding executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy for eight years. He currently serves as chairman of the international council and as a board member of the New Israel Fund, as well as on the boards of the Lowy Institute for International Policy (Australia) and the Institute for National Security Studies (Israel). Indyk also serves as a member of the advisory boards of the Israel Democracy Institute and America Abroad Media. Indyk received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Sydney University and a Ph.D. from the Australian National University.
Indyk is the author of Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East (Simon and Schuster, 2009). Most recently, Indyk co-authored Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy with Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Lieberthal (Brookings Institution Press, 2012)
http://www.brookings.edu/about/leadership
Board of Trustees
David M. Rubenstein Co-Chair of the Board, Co-Founder and Co-CEO The Carlyle Group
Brookings Institute Featured Experts
Martin S. Indyk Executive Vice President, The Brookings Institution (see above)
Tamara Cofman Wittes
Director, Center for Middle East Policy | Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
Tamara Cofman Wittes is a senior fellow and the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. Wittes served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from November of 2009 to January 2012, coordinating U.S. policy on democracy and human rights in the Middle East for the State Department. Wittes also oversaw the Middle East Partnership Initiative and served as deputy special coordinator for Middle East transitions. She was central to organizing the U.S. government's response to the Arab awakening.
Before joining the State Department, Wittes was a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, where she directed the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project. In that capacity, Wittes conducted research into political and economic reform in the Middle East region as well as U.S. efforts to promote democracy there. Wittes previously served as Middle East specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace and director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in international relations and security studies at Georgetown University. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Wittes is the author of Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy (Brookings Press, 2008) and the editor of How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process (USIP, 2005). She holds a B.A. in Judaic and Near Eastern studies from Oberlin College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University. She serves on the board of the National Democratic Institute, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Women in International Security.
Affiliations:
Berkeley Programs on Entrepreneurship, and Development in the Middle East, member
Council on Foreign Relations, member
Israel Institute, board member
National Democratic Institute, member of the board of directors
Women in International Security, member
Khaled Elgindy
Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy
Khaled Elgindy is a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. He is a founding board member of the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association. He previously served as an advisor to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009, and was a key participant in the Annapolis negotiations held throughout 2008.
Prior to that, Elgindy spent nine years in various political and policy-related positions in Washington, D.C., both inside and outside the federal government, including as a professional staff member on the House International Relations Committee in 2002 and as a policy analyst for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2000 to 2002. He served as the political action coordinator for the Arab American Institute from 1998 to 2000 and as Middle East program officer for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs from 1995 to 1997.
Elgindy holds a master’s in Arab studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s in political science from Indiana University.
Affiliations:
Egyptian-American Rule of Law Association, board member
The Telos Group, member, advisory council
http://www.brookings.edu/experts/elgindyk?view=bio
Natan Sachs
Natan Sachs is a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. His work focuses on Israeli foreign policy, domestic politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and U.S.-Israeli relations. He is currently writing a book on Israeli grand strategy and its domestic origins.
Sachs has taught on the Arab-Israeli conflict at Georgetown University's Department of Government, and research design for the Security Studies Program at Georgetown. Previously, Sachs was a Fulbright fellow in Indonesia, where his research included an empirical study of the behavioral effects of Islamic and national identities. He was subsequently a Hewlett fellow at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.
Sachs earned a bachelor's degree in the Amirim Excellence program at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and a master's and doctorate in political science from Stanford University.
http://www.brookings.edu/experts/sachsn?view=bio
Some professions require an ego of sociopathic dimensions , because they are messing with systems which they can not fully understand or control and involve catastrophic consequences for others.
Among them I would put economists, brain surgeons, politicians and generals.
Ladies, ladies,...
It's the Syndrome, stupid => http://wp.me/p4OZ4v-1CZ