Quote from deucy28:
It provoked a few questions I intend to pose that I think will be satisfied with short responses. I look forward to them.
In another life, I was around folks for a few decades that were working in financially oriented careers sensitive to interest rates. Every general election was preceded by the same mantra that the FED chairman wonât make a move with interest rates until the election was over. But countless times I asked why, and no one knew. Which suggested to me they were lemmings repeating what their peers were, no one knowing what they were talking about. Besides, wasnât the FED âindependentâ of political suasion? And I donât recall a chairman (Greenspan or Bernanke) necessarily always proving truth to that popular perception.
Sometime along the way, mid-90âs I believe, I read Griffinâs 600 page mountain The Creature from Jekyll Island (strange invention under cover of darkness by a cabal of major bankers conceptionalizing and conspiring the birth of the Federal Reserve), and I donât ever recall him addressing the subject. If I am right on that, it is tacit acknowledgment by the author that they are not influenced.
If I have this right, darkhorse, applying your game theory, Bernanke surprised us in the degree he did (my gawsh....first the Supreme Court decision and now the FED......can my heart take any more ?) because he played in his view the BIG QE card for self preservation interest of himself and the independence of the FED, opposite to the otherwise impressive series of smaller, rational cards pointing to the rationale that advancing the QE would have marginal effect if any other than piling on the national debt.
Why then, many weeks back, during his (last ?) appearance before congressmen, he so much as said it was insane for Congress to believe the FED can bring back this sick of an economy with monetary modalities while Congressmen are sitting on their hands the last three years not implementing fiscal solutions ? He so much as said the FED no longer has sufficient horsepower to stop a national fatality (my word, but his meaning). It would appear he accelerates at least his own hypocrisy and the prospect of not getting installed to the hall of fame by saying one thing and behaving dramatically the other way.
Many months ago, I read that Central Bankers the world over are generally more fearful of deflation with few rounds in the gun vs. inflation with an arsenal of weapons. Deflation, when the genie is out of the bottle is virtually impossible to put it back in before Depression. Bernanke played the big card Thursday that pulls the genie that much further out of the bottle.
The notion of him playing the Big QE Card to keep Obama and Democrats in Congress that in your mind allows him to think he and the FED are safer in keeping their independence that way at the knowing expense of furthering the demise of the future of the country and to be dealt with later is hard to swallow; he canât help but know it accelerates the assurance of muddle along economy and possibly Armageddon-ish scenarios. Of course he must know that dangerous course doesnât exactly look promising for him to to be able to leave a lasting, glowing legacy which I would argue is more important to him than a job he wants to keep that doesnât allow him to be a winner when having no bullets remaining that are effective. I mean what's the point ? Exceptionally well written essay with lots of make-sense thinking, but tell me it isn't true: The Chairman just as well wishes to sell the country down the road for his own self aggrandizement as Congress already has proven and continues to prove it does.
