Bernanke torn asunder

[Anorakphobia]

http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspo ... esses.html

Ben Bernanke sat before the Senate Finance committee today and received the usual palititudes from idiots who usually start a non too probing question with something like "Thank you Mister Chairman, now I ain't no economics professor so help me with my understanding of the following...."
zzzzzzzz

However then Sen Jim Bunning from Kentucky simply lit into Bernanke and the Fed with venomous criticism of them both.
It was great stuff and when it pops up on youtube, I'd encourage anyone to view it.
As it is, the broad thrust of it is contained in the transcript above.

However, must infuriatingly, the Senate Finance Chairman intervened and effectively apologised to Bernanke and all but labelled Bunning a quack in a jocular fashion.
It was as disgraceful an inetrvention as it was malacious, designed as it was to allow Bernanke steer Bunning's questions, which he gleefully accepted.
While all the compliant monkeys tittered at the disgraceful interjection teh camera flashed to Bunning who glared at him and looked fit to kill him with his bare hands. He'd have been justified as every word that came out of Bunning's mouth was true and needed to be said

America is in an absolute mess and when people try to talk some sense, they get ridiculed like this.
Pathetic but hey if they want to piss gasoline on the bonfire so be it.

[pluralist]

I had not heard of this guy. Seems pretty right wing.

[LAAlex]

Bunning is kind of nutty, a former professional baseball player with little interest legislation that doesn't concern baseball, it was said in Time magazine--and I really can't recall any baseball bills lately. I think he also had to release his medical records awhile back to prove he wasn't suffering from dementia. I wouldn't be counting on him to lead this charge.

[Defeated Romanticist]

I have a lot of sympathy for Bernanke. He's having to deal with things with some foul sounding things. Things like credit default swap and market overhang. This is the Fed is trying to keep the US property market afloat. If the arse fell out of the CDS market a $45,000,000,000,000 dollar industry would be in trouble.

The whole thing is a complete mess.

[grassroots]

I have a lot of sympathy for Bernanke. He's having to deal with things with some foul sounding things. Things like credit default swap and market overhang. This is the Fed is trying to keep the US property market afloat. If the arse fell out of the CDS market a $45,000,000,000,000 dollar industry would be in trouble.

The whole thing is a complete mess.

How does the arse fall out of the CDS market?

[rockyracoon]

I didn't bother to read the transcript but it doesn't take Albert Einstein to know the US economy is in a world of dung, and it is of the US's own making. If, as insinuated, the Senator isn't the brightest spark, he's still heads above those who want to believe that the credit crisis is just a small regulatory matter. Off balance sheet derivative products have been a time bomb waiting to go off since the 1980's. Each succeding decade has seen the investment bankers getting that little bit greedier until they have brought the whole flimsy house of cards down among the American populace. The Fed has funded the investment bank's greed and turned a blind eye at every opportunity to the impending derviatives fiasco. Between the Federal government's mishandling of finances and the Fed's mishandling of the money supply, they have probably brought the US economy to its lowest point since the depression of the 1930's.

[Anorakphobia]

It's very noticeable if you google any US politician who happens to veer from prepared transcripts and generally doesn't play the game, he will likely be variously described as a "loon" or "dangerous".
It is the oldest trick in the book and the intervention by the Senate Chairman to gag him today was as repulsive as it was malicious.

I don't know much about Bunning either. I don't care if he is right wing, I don't care if he is eccentric.
I do know he was 100% spot on with what he said today and all he got for it was ridicule.
Ridicule, then back to some pointless arse licking of Bernanke.

[Anorakphobia]

Fed member Janet Yellen tonight is saying the Fed will seek "increased intervention powers".
Simulltaneously SEC have just announced special rules to prohibit short selling of Fannie and Freddie.
If there was any doubt about it before, is gone now, the US is now a 3rd world economy.

Is it any wonder they were quick to silence poor old Bunning?

[LAAlex]

If there was any doubt about it before, is gone now, the US is now a 3rd world economy.

Is it any wonder they were quick to silence poor old Bunning?

Does that mean I have to give back my ipod?

[Defeated Romanticist]

I have a lot of sympathy for Bernanke. He's having to deal with things with some foul sounding things. Things like credit default swap and market overhang. This is the Fed is trying to keep the US property market afloat. If the arse fell out of the CDS market a $45,000,000,000,000 dollar industry would be in trouble.

The whole thing is a complete mess.

How does the arse fall out of the CDS market?

This explains it nicely.