MEH!
More MEH!
Further revelations are far more likely to lower then elevate, don't cha think?
And still more MEH!
Remember - you saw it here first.
Sometimes I kinda hate being right.
Wow. We are SO screwed.
.
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Sunday December 22, 2024 Alan Massengill
15 hours ago
3 comments:
Bernanke could print money by buying Treasuries and other securities on the open market, but that money would just disappear under mattresses -- the flow of funds data from the last time Bernanke tried that is proof enough of that -- so what, exactly, is Bernanke supposed to be doing what now? What we need is *fiscal* stimulus -- printed money being placed into the hands of people who will spend it either because they're poor, unemployed, or because they're mandated to spend it as a condition of getting it (infrastructure spending, for example) -- and Bernanke, being a central banker rather than Dictator, has no legal authorization that would allow him to do such a thing.
- Badtux the Practical Penguin
Tux -
Not being an economist, I don't have that specific answer. However, both Paul Krugman and Karl Smith think that the Fed could be doing much more, and are disappointed that it isn't happening.
For openers, they could stop paying interest on excess reserves. Can they penalize excess reserves? That would be an incentive to lend.
At the very least, the FOMC could look at the current disastrous situation and do more than yawn.
Certainly Bernanke - an expert on the Great Depression - could go to the president with a prescription.
The money for fiscal stimulus has to come from somewhere, and that is Bernanke's part to play.
I'm not saying it's easy, or that other people (like B. Hoover Obama) aren't also being woefully inadequate, or that the idiot Rethugs and Blue Dogs aren't doing everything they can to obstruct.
But when Greenspan was in that job he would make an enigmatic statement and the world would go into convulsions.
The Bernake Fed looks at economic meltdown, and says, "MEH."
Ergo, so do I.
JzB
Oh - and expectations. Economists are big on expectations - the Fed should do things (whatever they are) to increase inflation expectations.
Cheers!
JzB
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