Wednesday, February 3, 2010

I Don't Like Bernanke Either.....

...Or the Federal Reserve as a matter of fact.

But until someone can give me a better alternative. We are stuck with mediocrity on both counts.

I found the following piece well written and thought out. I also agree with almost everything Mr. Johnson has to say.

http://baselinescenario.com/2010/01/28/a-colossal-failure-of-governance-the-reappointment-of-ben-bernanke/

Where I have a problem is this:

Do we have anybody willing to do this job better then Uncle Ben? Will policy change? Will the new head of the FRB change course and mandate structural changes in monetary policy? Will the new hotshot in charge bring down the leverage in the Repo Market? Mandate proper regulations? Protect the tax payer from future bailouts? The answer here is NO on each and every count. Why go through the exercise of getting rid of a guy just to bring in someone who is going to be a mirror proxy?

We also can't get rid out of the FRB either. We would be the only developed country without a Central Bank. This is unacceptable. We as a country cant give these type's of decisions to Congress. This ultimately would end in tears far worst then what we have already cried over.

We just went through a structural crisis, not a cyclical crisis. A crisis that was 40 years in the making. From Nixon taking us off the Gold Standard all the way through LBO's, Junk Bonds, S&L's, Structured Finance, Securitization, Portfolio Insurance, Black Scholes, Telecom/Internet Bubble, VAR, LTCM, and finally ending with the housing crisis.

Some of these were in fact cyclical crisis', but once you start to put them together what you have is one huge mammoth structural problem. You cant handle a crisis of this magnitude with short term patch work solutions that just kicks the can down the road. It didn't work in Japan and neither will it work here. Getting rid of Bernanke and the FRB is an extremely short term minded exercise that doesn't benefit the country in the long run. We need Bernanke to quickly realize that printing money to give to bankers so they can finance their lifestyles at the behest of tax payers is totally unacceptable. Debasing the Dollar weakens our countries national security. Running up deficits is a national security problem. Hopefully he will come to these assumptions quickly. Getting rid of him and putting someone else in his place just puts us back in the early innings of crisis mode. The new guy will just waste time trying to figure out where Bernanke went wrong. DUH! You don't need to be a genius to figure out whats wrong?

Look. There is no silver bullet for our problems. There is no reset button one can press to alleviate the pain. We just need to have the ones in power be forced to change course. Its much easier in my research to force someone who is already part of the problem to change course then someone new. Someone new will always want to do things their own way and will not be for change. The only time I say change in course is good is that the guy you put in does what needs to be done.

We have Ben Bernanke for good or for worse. I have stated that Bernanke should be reappointed just so that he is the one tasked to clean up the mess he created. This is also the reason I voted for George W in 2004. Why should the Democrats try to clean up the mess from W's previous 4 years? There is nothing to be gained politically, politics is the name of the game currently.

In slight defense of Bernanke, I believe him to be a half way decent guy. I at the end of the day have this feeling that he wants to do the right thing, but just cant pull the trigger. This is in stark contrast to Geithner and Summers who are predatory Wall Street Thugs. These sharks have continually thrown the tax payer under the bus and need to be fired at once.

I hope against hope that we see Mr. Bernanke's "Better Angels" now that he has been reappointed.

No comments:

Post a Comment