Yeah, he totally missed the housing bubble. (Doh!!) Yeah, he was a part of Greespan’s Fed that lowered rates too much and did various and sundry other damage. (Double Doh!!) In other words, this guy’s stock is in the shitter, big time. I don’t think he can look any more the Economist Assclown.
But… I think I understand a little bit about this guy’s personality. He was always Mr. Smartypants. Always had the answers. Worked his ass off. Didn’t make a lot of money, but took his payment in psychic income: respect. Now he realizes he was part of a Major Fuck Up. And there’s nowhere to hide. So, what’s he going to do? He’s going to work his ass off to rebuild his reputation – 10x harder than he’s ever worked before. And in a bizarre way, despite the fact that he was part of the Problem(s), I want a guy at the helm who’s been taken down a few notches and has something to prove. Whose only currency his whole life has been respect, and now it’s swirling down the toilet. This guy is gonna fight. We may question some of the unorthodox ideas he comes up with, but at the end of the day I bet he does more good than harm going forward. It’s a pure contrary opinion.
Everybody hates Bernanke and thinks he’s an idiot. (When he was named Fed Chairman I said, “Oh shit. THAT guy? Gimme a break!”) I’ve gotta take the other side of that trade at this point. Geitner… eh… not so much. That may be inconsistent, but something about Geitner unnerves me. I can’t explain it.[/quote]
The simpler explanation is that Bernanke is a fool and he has no idea as to what he’s doing. And how is printing $1.2 trillion an indication of a fighter? To me, it just shows that Bernanke will take the easiest way out — attempt to reflate the bad assets in order to help out the politically powerful at the expense of the politically powerless. Bernanke, Geithner, and now Obama by implication, are all just tools of the establishment.
And how do you know that what Bernanke is doing will ‘avoid GDII’? Maybe he’s just pushing it out a few years, but now when we get there, we also have a worthless currency. That would follow the GDI time line where there is a crash, followed by a sucker’s rally, and then a long, slow decline.
As for a plan, why not just let the corporations fail? The U.S. should have a safety net for the poeple, not one for corporations. I’m no economist, but I don’t see how printing money to reflate assets which the market has deemed as bad is going to fix anything. It just looks like a massive misallocation of capital. Instead of going to some useful purpose, that money is essentially being flushed down the drain.
As for your TARP calculations, with government printing presses firing on all cylinders, the TARP may actually come out ahead. Of course, it may take a wheelbarrow full of greenbacks to buy a loaf of bread when Bernanke is done, but at least GDII will have been put off for a while.
