USA Today
In a wide-ranging speech to the London School of Economics, Bernanke said it may be necessary to provide more capital injections and loan guarantees to banks and financial firms to stabilize credit markets.
Bernanke, who didn’t weigh in on the details of the evolving U.S. economic stimulus package, made clear that it is should be only part of a broader government response to combat the worst financial crisis to hit the U.S. and the global economy since the 1930s.
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Did anybody else read that like the line from Jaws?
Joking aside, don’t you guys all feel like fools for believing that any government official could ever trust the free market to do its job? Because I know I do.
jimmy the notable on January 13, 2009 at 10:58 AM
Jimmy I feel like a fool for having any part in electing any of the arsewipes currently in office. We are soooooo
farked. Uh, well, actually my grandkids are farked.
Tim Zank on January 13, 2009 at 11:01 AM
I hoped. I never believed.
Heh. I think that was the joke when AP wrote the headline.
lorien1973 on January 13, 2009 at 11:03 AM
Yeah, screw you.
CP on January 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Blah, blah, blah.
Screw you, Bernanke, and the horse you rode in on.
IrishEi on January 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Bernanke’s brother is a lawyer in Charlotte, NC. Ben was in town with him over the holiday’s.
Seth Bernanke is a Democrat activist, check out his 2008 campaign donations
http://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/seth-bernanke.asp?cycle=08
jp on January 13, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Full retard, to 11.
the_nile on January 13, 2009 at 11:05 AM
Yes, by all means, hasten the US’s descent to Third World status.
Can’t Bush take this idiot with him?
james23 on January 13, 2009 at 11:06 AM
the other Bernanke, also sports a beard:
http://www.compensation.net/id3.html
I hope that beards are the only thing that run in the family and their politics and economic theory do not(doubtful). Which would mean we have a Democrat Federal Reserve Chairman, whose expertise is the Great Depression. Overseeing the Fed while Bush is labeled Hoover and the new FDR comes to ’save us all’.
scary stuff.
jp on January 13, 2009 at 11:13 AM
And Bernanke is supposedly an expert on the Great Depression. Geesh!
We have a debt-saturated society. Wall Street and our banker-types have relied on schemes and scams for decades now. Until we restore fiscal order, integrity, and sanity, we will never renew this economy. It’s impossible. I fear things will only get much worse from here because no actual solutions are under consideration. I shudder to think how Obama and CONgress will react when foreigners stop buying our sovereign debt? Just what will they do?
flyfisher on January 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM
Just a quick question. Prior to this TARP monster, did the executive branch have this level of appropriations power?
Weight of Glory on January 13, 2009 at 11:17 AM
yep, which would mean he knows how to start one and pave the way for Obama to be the messiah and ’save us all’ with a new new deal.
our elites keep sending these signals, calling him either the new Lincoln, or FDR or JFK, they can’t decide which it is. And then labeling Bush the new Hoover.
God help us all!
jp on January 13, 2009 at 11:25 AM
I sure hope this turns out better than the USS Indianapolis.
locomotivebreath1901 on January 13, 2009 at 11:29 AM
I guess what I‘m getting at is, if you look at how the auto bailout went down, Congress could not agree on a bill. In the past, that would have been the end of it. But with the existence of TARP, it meant that something could still be appropriated, without Congress, by the Executive branch. It seems to me that if I were a congressman, I’d want that TARP budget to be maintained so that I could avoid certain politically harmful votes, while kicking the can down to the White House. That “can” would then wrap itself in all the complexities of the Treasury Dept. with a “Greespan-ish” kind of explanation of the problem and required solution, which would then be implemented at the Treas. Sec. discretion. That way Congress could get away with having only an “oversight” roll that it is more comfortable with, should any blowback occur. The oversight wont be too stringent, however, for the White House could easily bribe certain Congress members with the TARP funds. Kind of like saying, “Hey, if you want money to go towards your ‘economically strapped’ state or city or industry in the future, then you’d better give my Treasury Sec. the all-clear now.” It just seemed somewhat amazing that after no bill could be written by Congress, there was now another, new, option on the table that used to not exist, at least not that I knew of, which is why I asked the smarty pants here on HA for their input!
Weight of Glory on January 13, 2009 at 11:35 AM
reading his Wiki page, Ben seems to be a student of Milton Friedman and on paper: “on our side” of things.
its a complex system and not as simple as some make it sound I suppose. He may be praising Obama here to save his hide, apparently Obama wants summers to replace him.
jp on January 13, 2009 at 11:45 AM
the fact he’s jewish and stuff like this is happening though, will give the conspiracy minded paulnuts plenty of material to work with.
little wonder they side with Hamas over Israel.
jp on January 13, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Bernanke reminds me of the typical kid on TV at the college football game who holds up a sign which reads “Hi Mom! Send Money.” So does Paulson. So does Greenspan (aka Mr. Andrea Mitchell). All they want is more stuff and you are supposed to fork it over unquestioningly.
I agree with the earlier poster’s contention that “our grandchildren” are screwed. We are spending away their future with wild abandon solely to keep failed businesses (with considerable lobbyist clout) afloat.
viking01 on January 13, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Just keep printing it out!
WisCon on January 13, 2009 at 12:01 PM
its all about stopping Deflation, check out Bernanke’s work on stopping deflation.
inflation is preferable, apparently. Makes the National Debt problem, not as much of one as Deflation does. Not to mention all the Americans who have Mortgages, Student loans, business debt, CC, etc.
jp on January 13, 2009 at 12:18 PM
I agree it’s all about stopping deflation. That’s what they are scared to death of. And yet, the deflation death spiral has begun despite their best efforts. I assume Beranke already realizes there is nothing he can do to stop it, but he is too arrogant to admit it publicly. He and Paulson will never admit their role in the policies that got us here. Paulson is a bandit! He apparently has immunity for his decisions made under TARP. But he doesn’t have immunity for the corrupt practices he used at Goldman and he ought to be investigated, along with a lot of other Wall Street bigshots. We need to see a whole group doing a perp walk. But instead, the culpable will be the very people put in charge of fixing the problem. It’s insanity.
We might survive severe deflation. After all, we’ve done it before. However, hyper-inflation kills countries and governments.
I’m normally an optimist, but I’m having a real hard time remaining optimistic. I don’t think our economy as such is the problem. American businesses and people can weather recesssions. The problem is our financial system. It’s our government and banking system. The problem is that we have an economy built on debt. Not just debt, but extreme careless leverage. Heck, even our money is debt. We’ve got a government that has adapted Keynesianism as its guiding philosophy and it’s killing us. This financial situation was predictable long ago. It’s a matter of simple math and the power of exponents. Good people are going to get hurt because of bankrupt ideas and a bankrupt government.
flyfisher on January 13, 2009 at 12:54 PM
Brilliant. Between the loans and handouts we’ve spent what, 8 trillion+ now? With a GDP of 12 trillion or so?
So we really need to spend more Government funding in a 12 month period that every business takes in during the same period?
Is the U.S. going to show Zimbabwe what hyper-inflation really looks like?
Yes We Can!
gekkobear on January 13, 2009 at 12:59 PM
Note to Congress and the Treasury:
STOP SPENDING OUR G*D D@MN MONEY ON SH!T THAT DOESN’T WORK!!!
Troy Rasmussen on January 13, 2009 at 1:42 PM
I have wrote all my congressmen telling them to vote no on any more bailout money.Let the economy level it’sself out.
A piece of advice for Obama. We know times are bad right now. So quit telling us that!! You need to offer encouragement otward the future and quit scaring everybody including banks so people will start spending again. We know it is bad but real Americans aren’t readyto roll over and die so quit telling us to!!
Kevin in Southern Illinois on January 13, 2009 at 8:28 PM