Why haven't Bernanke and Paulson resigned?

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: Skoorb

Originally posted by: Muse
Bernanke was a professor and an expert on the Great Depression and its causes. As such he is apt to be regarded as the right man for his job. In fact Obama is evidently going to keep him on at least for a while. Paulson is undoubtedly on much shakier footing, but he's not going to step down now. Hey, he's termed out in 70 days, so he's not jumping ship nohow.

I've heard this. It doesn't mean a thing, because frankly there are experts on the economy who call each other morons, aren't there? You can have two economists with PHds and a lifetime of experience who can argue two sides of an issue quite competently. Now, it's not likely they're both right, but just because Bernanke has studied something that happened 75 years ago doesn't mean he a) actually learned his lesson properly and b) can apply its teachings to what's going on now--where applicable; the economy is wildly different now than it was then.

Alan Greenspan admitted recently that he's shocked by the recent economic catastrophe and says if he'd known that this could happen he would have espoused far different strategies than the ones he did. We might have avoided a lot of this if he had. I wouldn't put all the blame for what's happened on Paulson and Bernanke. Bush is a nice scapegoat since he's termed out in a couple of months, however I think he does deserve a lot of the blame. Hey you've got to blame someone, huh? Anyway, since these guys are all history come Jan. 20th, what's the deal with wanting their heads now? Given Paulson's speech yesterday (?) saying he's comfortable spending the 700 billion buck bailout on things other than mortgage buy-ups given a different appearance of things than he thought probably has put him squarely in the cross-hairs of the post assassins.

I don't blame them all. I just think that they are definitely, demonstrably, no better than plenty of other people who didn't see this coming (and that is being kind; in their position are they not paid/trusted to be better than the regular economically ignorant person?), and thus lack the wisdom and skills to deserve being put at the helm of solving it.

Asking for their head, well things are happening quickly, aren't they? What's happened in the last 70 days? What could happen in the next 70? Time to throw this rotten apple out!

I have a hard time understanding how they could not see this coming. Makes one wonder. Others sure as hell saw it coming, years before.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: BoberFett

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: senseamp
Paulson is gonna be gone with Bush, I am sure if he hands over $1Trillion of your bucks to his buddies, they'll take good care of him.
Bernanke should be fired, plain and simple. His solution to any problem is print more money.

vs tighten credit and repeat history all over again :thumbsup:

If we're giving away trillions of dollars, why is going to the credit market? Give it to the people who are going to spend it directly and cut out the middle man (the banks) who fucked up in the first place.

If I had to choose

A) prop up distressed assets that historically have stable value
or
B) hand cash to people who haven't earned it

I choose A 100/100 times.

Plus what good is $3500 cash in the hands of an individual when the entire banking system is about to implode?

By B, you mean banks, right?