Bernanke Calls On Congress To Help The Economy — For At Least The Fourth Time In Five Months

Bernanke Calls On Congress To Help The Economy — For At Least The Fourth Time In Five Months

Huff Post

William Alden & Shahien Nasiripour

First Posted: 11-20-10 09:01 AM   |   Updated: 11-20-10 01:55 PM

NEW YORK — For at least the fourth time since June, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke publicly urged Congress to combat the lackluster recovery by increasing government spending, a recommendation that has gone unheeded by lawmakers.

In a speech at a conference of central bankers in Frankfurt, Bernanke once again said the Fed cannot save the economy on its own. The Fed’s recent move to add to its ballooning balance sheet by committing to buy up to $600 billion of government debt faces “limits” to its effectiveness, Bernanke said. The rest of the government, the chairman added, could aid the Fed’s efforts by hammering out a plan for stimulative spending. The right kind of spending, he noted, could help reduce the budget deficit over the long-term by first boosting economic growth.

“[I]n general terms, a fiscal program that combines near-term measures to enhance growth with strong, confidence-inducing steps to reduce longer-term structural deficits would be an important complement to the policies of the Federal Reserve,” Bernanke said Friday, according to his written remarks.

The fiscal policy recommendation came directly after Bernanke acknowledged it isn’t his job to make such policy proposals. “The Federal Reserve is nonpartisan and does not make recommendations regarding specific tax and spending programs,” the chairman noted.

The official parameters of his job, though, have not stopped Bernanke from engaging in backseat driving. At least four times since June — on June 9, July 21, July 22 and now Friday — he has urged lawmakers to increase spending to jumpstart the lagging economy.

But policy makers have proved to be unable to agree upon such a plan — or even propose one that’s viable. The rest of the nation has suffered as a result, as near-10 percent unemployment continues to hobble the economy. Democrats recently lost control of the House of Representatives, and a substantial part of their majority in the Senate. Voters said the dismal economy was their top concern.

To combat an ineffectual Washington establishment, the Fed has taken matters into its own hands. By buying up to $600 billion of government debt, the central bank hopes to increase the flow of money through the economy. Critics of the program, which is intended to lower interest rates and encourage corporate spending, have said the cheap money will not convince businesses to create jobs.

MORE HERE

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As stimulus funds near end, new pain will begin

by Ronald J. Hansen – Nov. 21, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

If people didn’t like the federal stimulus, they may hate when it’s gone.

As the year winds down, the $862 billion plan to rescue the economy from the depths of the recession enters a new phase in which tax cuts and credits expire and countless hard-to-replace construction projects will end. Thousands of workers in some states could lose their jobs.

The political power shift brought about by the midterm elections has likely settled any lingering doubts that the stimulus will largely run out, as scheduled, in the coming months. A smaller package of federal aid that passed in August, primarily for teachers, also will rapidly disappear. With the new Republican majority in the House next year, there will be little support for similar additional measures.

Worries about the national debt and a negative view of the stimulus augur a new period when more businesses must survive on their own and governments must tighten their belts. The austerity will be widely felt.

Nearly every worker in the nation will see slightly slimmer paychecks as $400 individual tax cuts are slated to end this year.

Tax credits, such as those offering incentives for energy-efficiency improvements for homeowners, also are set to lapse at year’s end. The earned-income tax credit, which rewards the working poor, will no longer include funding for those with a third child.

MORE HERE

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The American Ruling Class



Rolling Stone feature discusses issues explored in The American Ruling Class

facebook July 16, 2009

by Alive Mind

The American Ruling Class has never been more relevant to the current news cycle or to the collective consciousness of the American public. Goldman Sachs is announcing record profits and it is the subject of a big Rolling Stone expose in which Matt Taibbi discusses “The Great American Bubble Machine,” stating, “The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Does Goldman Sachs still rule the world? Find out the back story with the feature documentary, The American Ruling Class.

John Kirby , the director for this film, also posts on the Providence Journal and has done an article on “Building What”. The ad and “Geraldo-at-Large” spot can be seen on the family-members’ campaign Web site, .buildingwhat.org.

The movie, about an hour and a half, can be seen on HULU

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Bye-Bye Bernanke: Time For Change?

Bye-Bye Ben Bernanke – Thanks for Burning the House Down

Daily Kos- by Badabing

Fri Jan 22, 2010 at 08:12:35 AM PST

Friday, January 22nd, 2010 was supposed to have been the full Senate vote on the confirmation of Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. A few months ago, his confirmation seemed like a done deal, but all that has changed quickly over the past few weeks.

The vote has been put off, and the reason that the vote has been put off is because it now appears that Ben Bernanke may not have the votes to be reconfirmed on both sides of the isles>  The election of Scott Brown to not just any seat in the Senate, but a strong held Democratic Senate seat has put a fire under the Senate and apparently President Obama too.  Good…I hope they are all finally getting the message.

I believe that message is this: Americans are sick to death of the critical mass of corruption that has eaten away like an ugly plague of millions of locusts into all 3 branches of our government.

MORE HERE

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Opposition To Bernanke Growing In Wake Of Mass. Vote

Huffington Post- Ryan Grim

First Posted: 01-21-10 11:01 AM   |   Updated: 01-22-10 11:28 AM

UPDATE — JANUARY 22, 11:23 AM ET:

California Democrat Barbara Boxer has become the latest senator to oppose the nomination of Ben Bernanke to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Boxer’s opposition, which she announced in an exclusive statement to the Huffington Post, is a blow to Bernanke. Boxer is no firebreather on economic issues, but considered a more mainstream Democrat from a state that was considered comfortably blue — until Tuesday’s special election in Massachusetts, that is.

“I have a lot of respect for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. When the financial crisis hit in late 2008, he took some important steps to prevent what many economists believe could have been an even greater economic catastrophe,” said Boxer.

“However, it is time for a change — it is time for Main Street to have a champion at the Fed. Dr. Bernanke played a lead role in crafting the Bush administration’s economic policies, which led to the current economic crisis. Our next Federal Reserve Chairman must represent a clean break from the failed policies of the past.”

MORE HERE

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Ben the Banker…Yes, We Can!

More fun at Ben the Banker’s expense for all you fun-loving doods out there who love to watch him stutter and squirm in the face of awkward questions about the Fed.

But first, a video of the soi-disant Wizard of Oz being exposed as the charlatan he is:

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

Now for an article by Gary North:

Why Bernanke Is in Panic Mode

Gary North | Lew Rockwell.com | Saturday, August 1, 2009

Bernanke video: He stutters; he stammers; he is in visible panic mode over Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve. Watch it. You’ll love it! Then send it to your friends.

Usually, when Ben Bernanke is interviewed, he has the demeanor of a college professor in the presence of freshman students. Of course, as a full professor, he did not have to teach freshmen. That is for untenured assistant professors to do. Stammering and stuttering are therefore a real departure for him. There is a reason for this.

For the first time since 1914, there is a public debate in Congress over the Federal Reserve’s power. Never before has a majority of the House of Representatives called for what should always have existed: Congressional scrutiny over the FED’s money. Bernanke says that Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve is a bill to audit Federal Reserve policy. Yet the bill says nothing about auditing policy. So, what is he talking about?

Bernanke says that Congress can have access to an audit at any time. Sure it can – an audit vetted and sanitized by the FED, where no one knows which banks got what bailout money. This is an audit in the way a CIA audit is an audit. The main differences are these: (1) the CIA legally operates only outside the borders of the United States; (2) the CIA can assassinate any uncooperative Congressman who insists on a full audit. The FED does not have the second power, but it is not limited by the first restriction.

What has Bernanke panicked is this: the Federal Reserve has bailed out the biggest banks and has let almost 100 little ones die. This is crony capitalism at its most notorious.

Read more…

Here’s a video of the same occasion on youtube:

09 07 30 Bernanke Rebuttal – From PBS

kdenninger | 30 July 2009

On PBS I got a question into Ben Bernanke – who promptly ducked it. Here’s why he ducked it, and what it means. Analysis and a challenge, which I fully expect Bernanke will refuse to accept, of course.

Pass this one around to your friends and associates.

Finally, a comment from one of our readers:

75% of Americans Want To Audit the Fed – Thousands Want to Abolish It!

Read the petition and the angry comments at http://www.petitiononline.com/fed/petition.html

Thanks,

Ron

You’re welcome Ron, and welcome to the blog.

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Let’s Break Up the Fed!

AMAR BHIDé | WSJ | Wednesday, July 29, 2009

The Obama administration’s plan to increase the powers of the Federal Reserve, says one critic, is like giving a teenager “a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon.” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner disagrees. He argues that the Fed is “best positioned” to oversee key financial companies, and that the Obama plan would give the Fed only “modest additional authority.”

Read more…

Force the Federal Reserve into the sunlight

San Francisco Examiner | July 29, 2009

Private bankers who run the Federal Reserve System have the power to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the nation’s money supply, making each dollar in circulation automatically worth less. Any institution with that kind of power with the economic lives and fortunes of Americans should be operated in the open. That’s why the Fed’s lack of transparency is troubling, to say the least.

Read more…

Gallup Poll: Americans Turning Against Federal Reserve

Paul Joseph Watson | Prison Planet.com | Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke seems frightened to death at what might be revealed if the Federal Reserve were forced to open its books and has been busy scuttling around lying about the bill in order to try and shoot it down.

Read more…

Eliot Spitzer Takes On The Fed – MSNBC w/ Dylan Ratigan (7/24/09)

Spitzer: Federal Reserve is ‘a Ponzi scheme, an inside job’

Daniel Tencer | Raw Story | 2009-07-25

The Federal Reserve — the quasi-autonomous body that controls the US’s money supply — is a “Ponzi scheme” that created “bubble after bubble” in the US economy and needs to be held accountable for its actions, says Eliot Spitzer, the former governor and attorney-general of New York.

Read more…

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Helicopter Ben is always good for a laugh

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Ron Paul: Establishment Can No Longer Ignore Calls To Audit The Fed

Congressman says Washington elite are watching grassroots efforts very closely

Steve Watson | Infowars.net | Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Texas Congressman Ron Paul has recorded a video update on the ongoing effort to audit the Federal Reserve, assuring supporters that the establishment in Washington is paying very close attention.

As Paul states in the video, 272 members of the House, 95 of them Democrats, now support HR 1207, Ron Paul’s “audit the Fed” bill.

In addition, 13 members of the Senate, 2 of which are Democrats, have pledged support for S 604 The Federal Reserve Sunshine act, the companion bill in the Senate.

“I think it is going to be impossible for them just to ignore everything we have done and just walk away, something will be done,” Paul comments. “The big question is will we be able to get something worth while?”

Original article

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Henry Paulson & The great American bubble machine

This article was originally from Rolling Stone magazine, and is here shown in a blog from somethingawful.com. It seems that Henry Paulson was the former CEO of Goldman Sach’s, a time honored vampire that has sucked the life blood of the sheeple. Even in the times before the Federal Reserve.

Omnislash
May 25, 2004

This isn’t really an exclusive, but aside from a scanned PDF copy of the physical magazine, the complete article isn’t online anywhere I can see thanks to Rolling Stone being completely retarded, so I OCR’d it. This is one of the best articles he’s written yet, and even as cynical as I am, I was still sick to my stomach by the time I finished the last section.
quote:

THE GREAT AMERICAN BUBBLE MACHINE

From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression – and they’re about to do it again

By MATT TAIBBI

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it’s everywhere. The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who’s Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.

Read the whole article ~here~, or click the link at the top for a PDF file of the original article in Rolling Stone magazine.

kudos to Omnislash

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Rep. Alan Grayson’s bill to cap executive compensation on bailed out financial institutions

Well, as you probably already know, Fox News makes me feel like losing my groceries, but I had to show this video attack on Congressman Alan Grayson. This repulsive dude, Neil Cavuto, is attempting to take on the appearance of authority to trick him into giving him an absolute number on an argument that doesn’t really call for anything but a relative example.

What Alan is dealing with here is known as The “Cavuto mark”. Following a satirical segment proposing it on The Daily Show on September 13, 2006, the word “Cavuto” is sometimes used to refer to a question mark “used to turn any statement, no matter how outrageous, into a simple, seemingly fair, question.”

Barney Frank: “This is presumably a psychological disorder”

Huffington Post

April fools day, 2009

House Republicans did their best Wednesday to battle Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on the House floor and wound up on the receiving end of some classic Frank jabs.

The bill at issue, authored by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), would cap executive compensation at bailed-out financial institutions and it puts the GOP in a tough spot: after expressing outrage over the AIG bonuses, it’s tough to vote against the bill.

In announcing their opposition, Republicans such as Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) took to the floor to decry the fact that the stimulus allowed the bonus payments to be made. They excoriated Democrats for not reading the full stimulus bill but said they objected to the bill on the floor that would fix the loophole that had been in the stimulus.

Frank had a field day with it.

“This is really extraordinary,” he said. “What you have just heard is a denunciation of something the Congress did a few weeks ago and a refusal to undo it. I’ve never seen people, Mr. Chairman, so attached to something they hate. This is presumably a psychological disorder which I am not equipped to diagnose. The objection of the gentleman from Texas was that when the recovery bill was passed, it was passed too quickly [and it] included a provision that shouldn’t have been in there. This bill takes it out.”

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Congressman Alan Grayson on AIG: “One of Those Times We Have to Amputate”

by Geezer Power

TPM

By Elana Schor – March 16, 2009, 2:52PM

I just spoke with Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), a freshman on the House Financial Services Committee who’s become a fast-rising star thanks to his tenacious advocacy for transparency in bailout lending by the Federal Reserve.

Grayson joined fellow Democrats as well as Republicans in blasting AIG for its refusal to give up hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus payments. He painted the government’s choice as a stark one, using the metaphor of treating a wound versus amputating a limb.

“It’s not clear to me at all that we’re taking the correct approach by allowing AIG to continue to operate, regardless of who owns it,” Grayson told me. “At this point, ownership is becoming an amorphous concern when comes to a company that borrows millions and millions without any prospect of paying it back. … Do we continue to allow the bleeding or not?”

Converting AIG from a ward of the state in all but name to an outright arm of the government would be a politically controversial move, given the level of apprehension in Washington over calls to nationalize failing banks.

But Grayson views the dilemma facing lawmakers as a common-sense decision: AIG executives who made more than a million dollars while running the company into the ground should immediately be fired. “The people who caused the problem are not going to be able to solve it,” he said.

Article

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