I've never posted a youtube video, but this is a good one..

[Praxis1452]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: spittledip
What is the point of being an expert if you get something so important so wrong?

He's an expert on the Great Depression. I'd say he's the perfect man for the job in this crisis.

And so was milton friedman, I think they're both quite different.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: spittledip
What is the point of being an expert if you get something so important so wrong?

He's an expert on the Great Depression. I'd say he's the perfect man for the job in this crisis.

I think that would be the expert consensus opinion.

And when it comes right down to it, if the future really can't be seen, the only thing that matters is what you do when the shit hits the fan. I think the FED Chairman has earned much praise from the cognoscenti.

 

[totalnoob]

Bernanke is a f*cking moron and he is guaranteeing us great depression #2 with all of this stimulus. The crash of 29 was caused by excess debt and credit expansion in the 20s. What is being done now is many magnitudes worse.

There is simply no way to safely unwind the trillions in loans and newly printed money. Inflation is baked in the cake and the next euphoric price bubble isn't going to be in tech stocks or housing..but in EVERYTHING. It's going to be the mother of all bubbles (MOAB) and we can expect a hellish nighmare when it pops.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: First

Originally posted by: Skoorb
I've been saying this for a while. He was completely blindsided by what many saw coming and has been charged with being a key player with what he completely misunderstood to begin with.

Who saw this coming? Details? Links? Surely they must have made out like bandits the last 2 years.

Of course Schiff saw this coming, as did Ron Paul, it's why Schiff's clients are worth trillions now and Ron Paul is more rich than Warren Buffett.

 

[LegendKiller]

Originally posted by: totalnoob
Bernanke is a f*cking moron and he is guaranteeing us great depression #2 with all of this stimulus. The crash of 29 was caused by excess debt and credit expansion in the 20s. What is being done now is many magnitudes worse.

There is simply no way to safely unwind the trillions in loans and newly printed money. Inflation is baked in the cake and the next euphoric price bubble isn't going to be in tech stocks or housing..but in EVERYTHING. It's going to be the mother of all bubbles (MOAB) and we can expect a hellish nighmare when it pops.

Actually, 1929 was caused by many factors way beyond the Fed's control (including the government demanding lower rates to help Great Britain float their new gold backed currency). Once the crash happened the Fed didn't help the economy, at all, no bailouts, nothing. It's because they believed maintaining the strength of the dollar at all costs, which exacerbated the problem.

They forgot that their role, as the central bank, is to make sure the markets WORK. This is what they did this time and didn't do in the 30s.

Keep in mind that unemployment had been cut 40% by FDR and the Fed's policies during the early/mid 30s and was going lower. It was only increased again because FDR thought, and the Fed agreed, that the stimulus being employed was inflationary and they had to protect the dollar. Thus, in 1936/37, they pulled back the stimulus and pulled the rug out from underneath the economy, creating a double-dip recession, extending the depression.

The money being injected into the economy was also injected globally, thus, as far as PPP goes, it is all on the same level. Additionally, the money injected is offset by the money destroyed (via RE crash and debt writedowns). Inflation is NOT "baked in the cake", because those two factors.

 

[DealMonkey]

"I'm hopeful, er confident in fact, that bank regulators will pay close attention to the types of loans are being made, making sure that underwriting is being done right..."

LMAO! :laugh:

 

[Craig234]

Some quotes about the Great Depression:

"There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity."
- Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928

"I have no fear of another comparable decline."
- Arthur W. Loasby (President of the Equitable Trust Company), quoted in NYT, Friday, October 25, 1929

"In most of the cities and towns of this country, this Wall Street panic will have no effect."
- Paul Block (President of the Block newspaper chain), editorial, November 15, 1929

"I cannot help but raise a dissenting voice to statements that we are living in a fool's paradise, and that prosperity in this country must necessarily diminish and recede in the near future."
- E. H. H. Simmons, President, New York Stock Exchange, January 12, 1928

"For six years American business has been diverting a substantial part of its attention, its energies and its resources on the speculative game... Now that irrelevant, alien and hazardous adventure is over."
- Business Week, November 2, 1929

"This crash is not going to have much effect on business."
- Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929


"The end of the decline of the Stock Market will probably not be long, only a few more days at most."
- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics at Yale University, November 14, 1929

"Hysteria has now disappeared from Wall Street."
- The Times of London, November 2, 1929

"... a serious depression seems improbable"
- Harvard Economic Society, November 10, 1929

"There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash."
- Irving Fisher, leading U.S. economist , New York Times, Sept. 5, 1929

"There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about."
- Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930

"Unless we are to have a panic -- which no one seriously believes, stocks have hit bottom."
- R. W. McNeal, financial analyst in October 1929

"There is nothing in the situation to be disturbed about."
- Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Feb 1930

"...there are indications that the severest phase of the recession is over..."
- Harvard Economic Society (HES) Jan 18, 1930


"... the outlook continues favorable..."
- HES Mar 29, 1930


"... the outlook is favorable..."
- HES Apr 19, 1930


"...by May or June the spring recovery forecast in our letters of last December and November should clearly be apparent..."
- HES May 17, 1930


"... irregular and conflicting movements of business should soon give way to a sustained recovery..."
- HES June 28, 1930


"... the present depression has about spent its force..."
- HES, Aug 30, 1930


"We are now near the end of the declining phase of the depression."
- HES Nov 15, 1930


"Stabilization at [present] levels is clearly possible."
- HES Oct 31, 1931

More current:

"The idea that we're going to see a collapse in the housing market seems to me improbable?
- John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury for George W. Bush

"We're now in the 'middle innings' of the current economic expansion, and the next economic recession is not yet in sight.?
- David Seiders, Chief Economist, National Association of Home Builders, Jan 2006

"I'd say this is another very important signal that the economic soft patch we were all worried about is pretty much confined to March"
- David Seiders, Chief Economist, National Association of Home Builders

?The continuing shortages of housing inventory are driving the price gains. There is no evidence of bubbles popping.?
- David Lereah, NAR?s chief economist, August 2005

"We are really on track for a soft landing. There are no balloons popping.?
- David Lereah, NAR?s chief economist, December 2005

 

[Craig234]

Not sure where this fits so posting it here - from Sep 2008:

KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, I'm not despairing because one of the things, as you know, when you get to be more or less our age, you've got grandchildren you can feel young with. But I'm sick of Washington. It really deserves the fact that 81 percent or 85 percent of the people think we're on the wrong track. I mean, we are on the wrong track. I wish I could say that there's a blueprint that would get us back on the right track. But my sense of histories previous goes to the one or two percent leading world economic power is you don't get back on the right track.

BILL MOYERS: So what happens?

KEVIN PHILLIPS: You go through a painful adjustment process. The British were absolutely top dog in the world in 1914. Two world wars and 35 years later, they were having, after World War II, they were having food rationing, the pound sterling crashed, dukes were giving guided tours of their castles because they couldn't afford to maintain them otherwise. Doesn't take long. And I'm afraid the United States is coming right into that period which marks a couple of decades coming up that are going to be very difficult for America.

 

[Elias824]

What was quote about the difference between normal people and economists? At least normal understand they can be wrong

 

[Pliablemoose]

I'm actually impressed as hell with what Ben has done and further impressed that the Obama admin has worked with Volker.

Until present times, real estate prices had been a regional thing, we're all responsible for being stupid (well not me, I only owe a bit more on my house till it's paid for)...

Would it be wrong of me to want to post pics of Maria Bartiromo in this thread? :laugh:

 

[First]

Originally posted by: totalnoob
Bernanke is a f*cking moron and he is guaranteeing us great depression #2 with all of this stimulus. The crash of 29 was caused by excess debt and credit expansion in the 20s. What is being done now is many magnitudes worse.

What? How could excess credit have caused the Depression when price levels plummeted into the greatest deflation of any decade in history, the 1930's? What you posit is literally, numerically impossible.

There is simply no way to safely unwind the trillions in loans and newly printed money. Inflation is baked in the cake and the next euphoric price bubble isn't going to be in tech stocks or housing..but in EVERYTHING. It's going to be the mother of all bubbles (MOAB) and we can expect a hellish nighmare when it pops.

Wanna make a prediction? Because right now, considering how much deflationary pressure we've seen from falling prices the last two years (including 09), I'm going to say we'll never see higher than ~ 6% inflation in any one year over the next 5.

 

[totalnoob]

Originally posted by: First
[
Wanna make a prediction? Because right now, considering how much deflationary pressure we've seen from falling prices the last two years (including 09), I'm going to say we'll never see higher than ~ 6% inflation in any one year over the next 5.

I'll take the opposite stand. Once things bottom out in the next 12 months, we will begin having inflation of AT LEAST 6% annually for the next decade.

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: bamacre

Originally posted by: Craig234
I wonder what would have happened to him if he had predicted the September 2009, crash exactly, in his comments preceding years. I suspect he'd have been gone.

Why would he have predicted such a thing? If he did, he'd have to say why it was coming, and that would have called for sharing the blame.

The ironic thing is, he's the one "fixing" our economy. Shouldn't we be listening to people who saw it coming? Whether they be Keynesian/Austrian, either way I think people would be more comfortable.

since when has Austrian economics been a serious field? perhaps next you will request that creation scientists coming up with our scientific curriculum is acceptable because students being taught evolution have been doing poorly.

Originally posted by: magomago
Yeah I'm amazed how he still has a job. Even if you can't pin it to him directly, and you want to say Greenspan has a bigger role as leader of the fed, this guy was essentially greenspan's protege. You'd think you'd want to bring in someone trained in different/new ideas.

last i checked, bernanke and greenspan are very different ideologically and academically.

Originally posted by: JS80
Catch 22 for him. If he had talked negatively about the economy and markets crashed people would have asked for his head.

this

 

[ericlp]

This dude was just a puppet on a sting hired by bush and co. Why not dig up some old McCain Vids and you'll see both parallel the same lies. Just so happens they couldn't keep up the good news they way the bush administration was running things. The Smoke and Mirror pony show was just too thin.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: totalnoob

Originally posted by: First
[
Wanna make a prediction? Because right now, considering how much deflationary pressure we've seen from falling prices the last two years (including 09), I'm going to say we'll never see higher than ~ 6% inflation in any one year over the next 5.

I'll take the opposite stand. Once things bottom out in the next 12 months, we will begin having inflation of AT LEAST 6% annually for the next decade.

Placeholder bump.

Btw, excess credit didn't cause the Depression.

 

[totalnoob]

Btw, excess credit didn't cause the Depression.

No, it just caused the panic and market crash. The depression was caused by incessant intervention that followed it..preventing things from liquidating properly and making it impossible for businessmen to plan for the future.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: totalnoob

Btw, excess credit didn't cause the Depression.

No, it just caused the panic and market crash. The depression was caused by incessant intervention that followed it..preventing things from liquidating properly and making it impossible for businessmen to plan for the future.

Not really, considering the economy contracted for years after the 29 crash (with an bear market run in-between) that could have been easily avoided with an increase in money supply, as is easily provable statistically. But the Fed did nothing, let the money supply and credit contract and "let the market work", resulting in the Depression. It happened again in the late 30's when they pulled back on stimulus and another recession ensued. Excess credit had absolutely nothing to do with the Depression itself, it was merely another example of a bubble created by speculators that has always occurred in our history, before the Fed and before the 20th century.

 

[Munky]

Originally posted by: Dari
When you become an economist of that position, you are no longer just a man, you are an institution. Hence, your objectives changes from telling the truth to calming things down. Basically, he told people what they wanted to hear, that everything is fine. Really can't expect much more from someone like that.

So why the f*ck should anyone listen to him or trust what he says if he just tells people what they want to hear?

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: munky

Originally posted by: Dari
When you become an economist of that position, you are no longer just a man, you are an institution. Hence, your objectives changes from telling the truth to calming things down. Basically, he told people what they wanted to hear, that everything is fine. Really can't expect much more from someone like that.

So why the f*ck should anyone listen to him or trust what he says if he just tells people what they want to hear?

the chairman of the fed has two role, one to say the 'right' thing (keeping the economic on a psychologically even keel) and doing the right thing in private. the two are not and often should not be the same thing. For all we know, he was shitting bricks over this in 2004.