The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

[bcassill]

Just found an interesting article discussing Bernanke's state of mind during his 60 Minutes interview. The guy seemed totally beside himself, almost like it was all he could do just to complete the interview. I suspect he knows that the gig is up and that he is backed into a corner with no way out. Anyhow, you can have an gander at the article here:

The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

[Shakespear]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

The most nervous moment for him in my eyes was when he was talking about unemployment. The rest is his normal self, trying not to say too much.

For sure there was nothing optimistic in it. The comment about education being a source of the problems sounds hollow. Comments about why the disaster was not headed off at the pass also sounded like a big bowl of mush.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

Looks like the video is gone

It plays fine for me. The interview is a 14 min 58 sec segment of "60 Minutes."

[blazespinnaker]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

I don't think the guy has ever done a national interview like this before. Probably not used it. next.

[Chris Coles]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

The problem is not Bernanke as such, it is that, for the entire period from the mid 1960's onwards, the Western economic model has not had a properly functional and widely recognised system to take the savings of the nation, (any Western nation), to be reinvested back into new employment. The further down the road we are on, the further from stability we are, the lower the effect "unworkable" policies have on the wider economy.

Earlier this week I posted this comment against a short piece from Dr. Ron Paul published by The Daily Bell.
http://www.Thedailybell.com/1562/Ron-Paul-Dont-Raise-the-Debt-Ceiling.html

Paul was arguing for Congress to reject a vote for further Quantitive Easing. My comment was:

The FED buying Treasury debt is simply passing the problem from one balance sheet to another.. In which case, asking for a reduction in spending will only shrink the volume flow of funding; not replace it.

The problem that must be faced is NOT a need to reduce government spending; it is the need to replace a massive amount of government spending, (ergo, notionally creating false employment), with the means to create a prosperous free enterprise private sector economy. Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, set out the solution in a single sentence hundreds of years ago.

"The number of useful and productive labourers, it will hereinafter appear, is everywhere in proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work, and to the particular way in which it is so employed."

The problem is not one created by government, (though they have certainly had a hand in its implementation), it is one created by the several too big to fail investment banks.

Put simply, their feudal mercantile system, centred upon venture capitalism and mergers and acquisition that they have imposed upon the Western economies; is what has signally failed and the responsibility lies at their feet. Moreover, they refuse to recognise any responsibility; and have no means to change their own mistaken direction to put the problem right again.

Until everyone takes this message on board, constantly arguing that the problem lies with Congress, is to argue to find your direction with an old fashioned Iron bucket pulled down over your eyes. All you see is your feet and they point in the wrong direction.

The Western economies need a new form of financial institution dedicated to removing the feudal impediments to the supply of that capital stock Adam Smith so easily describes; right back to be invested at the grass roots of the all the Western nations presently infected with the most simple disease; insufficient private sector employment.

Those who doubt my point should all, before any new meeting, in any form of government institution; take a long walk through their most disadvantaged communities and understand that what they see is exactly what a medieval slum looked like.

The only long term solution to tax poverty and over borrowing is the investment of the likes of Adam Smith's capital stock, over many years, back into the grass roots of your respective nations to replace the lost prosperity.

Bernanke's problem is he has no understanding of a properly functioning "Grass Roots" economy. In a sense, that is understandable; he has never in his life lived in one. Moreover, the economic system he resides in, has been running out of control for decades and he had no mechanism to even start to understand it. He gives that away at the end of the interview by telling us he did not see any of this on his "horizon". he simply did not see it coming.

My argument is that shows he has no proper understanding of the economic model that has collapsed; the bottom segment of any nation; the grass roots where all new employment is created.

President Obama has to open the dialogue to those of us that saw what was going to happen; have repeatedly stated what must be done to enable the economy to change direction, and the likes of Bernanke must have the courage to tell the president they were wrong and that we have something worthwhile to say.

[marvenger]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

The problem is not Bernanke as such, it is that, for the entire period from the mid 1960's onwards, the Western economic model has not had a properly functional and widely recognised system to take the savings of the nation, (any Western nation), to be reinvested back into new employment.

What is the incentive for the elites to create such a system. We don't live in a democracy so the elites aren't going to create a system that threatens their power. People need to push back. TINA.

[Shakespear]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

What is the incentive for the elites to create such a system.

As we have seen over the past couple of years, NONE. No one is to blame and all who failed to run a sound business were bailed out ("Too Large To Fail", TLTF ).

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

As we have seen over the past couple of years, NONE. No one is to blame and all who failed to run a sound business were bailed out ("Too Large To Fail", TLTF ).

Even when the enterprises fail, like Enron, or perform poorly, like Home Depot, the principal executives who make the bad decisions often walk away with such a huge bag of money that they and their children will live like kings for the rest of their lives. Their only incentive is to make the enterprise large just long enough to justify a high personal compensation, or to get themselves into the corner office by any means necessary. Kind of a classic smash-and-grab crime, really.

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
-Thomas Jefferson

[coolhand]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

"The world is always only 9 meals from chaos." People won't care unless the Bernank loses control of inflation on the upside & people can't afford to feed their kids a la New Orleans. Then they'll care.

[marvenger]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

I think most are good people, just living in an illusional world, like those people in Plato's cave staring at the shadows on the wall from the real world above. They mistake these illusions that are carefully crafted by the elite for reality. I don't think its true that they don't care, perhaps part of the apathy in the US is that the colonial activities of the its multinational corporations are good at extracting wealth from the rest of the world that a lot of the population lives well and when they look at the rest of the world they reckon the current system is a pretty good one. But if you look at Spain in 1930's in the civil war the people were not apathetic against their wealthy masters, for years they had been building strength in trade unions and when Fascists tried to take over the people rose up, the trade Unions mobilised militias against the fascists. Unfortunately the socialists backed by soviet russia started to gain political power as they were the ones who could get arms to fight the fascists and the collectives got purged. It made better business sense to international interests than a bunch of collectives running the show.

[Slimprofits]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

I don't think the guy has ever done a national interview like this before. Probably not used it. next.

He's been on 60 minutes before. March 2009

[pianodoctor]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

Every time I've ever seen him his lip was quivering. I figure he's either got a neurological condition or chronic stage fright, which I can understand. Either way, he always seems to be that way on camera so I don't attach any special significance to it.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

He's [Bernanke's] been on 60 minutes before. March 2009

Yes. John Stewart has an excellent hit piece on this. Bernanke flat out admitted in that earlier interview that he was effectively "printing money."

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[cjppjc]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

I think most people, are just living in an illusionary world, like those people in Plato's cave staring at the shadows on the wall from the real world above. They mistake these illusions for reality

I was very taken with the beginning of your thought, and felt compelled to change it somewhat. I hope you don't mind. To me this is the real nub of the matter.

[Sharky]

Re: The Game is Up: Bernanke Loses It

What a terrible interview. Back in the day, 60 Minutes used to be known for really putting the pressure on -- here, they just totally caved; no pointed questions; no nothing. Yet another sign that the independent media is truly dead.