 Story of the Week Chris Hayes, on Up w/ Chris Hayes |
On Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke went up to Capitol Hill to testify in front of the Joint Economic Committee. He faced a fairly skeptical, even hostile, audience, primarily the Republicans who think Bernanke has been doing too much to help the economy.
Rep. Kevin Brady: I wish you would look the market in the eye and say The Fed has done all it can perhaps too much.
Sen. Jim DeMint: I think you'd have to agree that the activism has been unprecedented.
Bernanke was his normal, mild-mannered, calm self, largely untroubled by his interlocutors' barbs.
Sen. Dan Coats: Given the kind of fragile state - fragile world that we're looking at and particularly the situation at night as it's unfolding do you sleep well at night?
Bernanke: Do I see-?
Sen. Dan Coats: Do you sleep well at night?
Bernanke: I generally sleep pretty well. But I have a lot to do during the day and I need to be well rested.
And he assured the members of Congress that if things get really bad, the Fed will be there to help.
"As always, the Federal Reserve remains prepared to take action as needed to protect the U.S. financial system and economy in the event that financial stresses escalate," Bernanke said.
But the point is that things are already bad. And Bernanke was never asked the one question that had I been sitting up on the dais I would have liked to ask him: "Mr. Chairman: your academic research shows the necessity of central bankers taking aggressive, sometimes unprecedented action in the wake of financial crisis in order to avoid long term stagnation and economic misery. And yet, as Federal Reserve chairman you seem to be entirely ignoring your own research. The Fed refuses to take action to address the jobs crisis in this country, even as inflation stays at or below target. You are ignoring your legal mandate, ignoring your own research, ignoring the misery of millions who are unemployed for no good reason. My question for you, Mr. Chairman, is: Are you trying to get Mitt Romney elected president?"
Provocative, sure, but, worth discussing. Because we continue to have an employment crisis in this country that is engulfing the labor force in flames and rather than even attempt to put out the fire, Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve are content simply to sit back and watch it all burn, assuring us not to worry, if things get really bad they'll come to the rescue. Meanwhile, the entire block is going to be reduced to ash.
Of course, because we're in campaign season, most of the media focus has not been on Bernanke, but instead on the two men vying to be the next president. In the wake of the recent awful jobs report, President Obama and Mitt Romney had a back and forth this week about job creation, or lack thereof, and who is to blame for it.
The President points out that the economy has a net positive of 50,000 private sector jobs under his watch, which is impressive given the fact that he inherited an economy in the worst freefall in 70 years, losing almost 6000,000 jobs the month he was inaugurated (and, even more shockingly, contracting at a rate of 6.3%, almost twice as bad as we thought at the time based on data at the time).
Then there's the fact that Mitt Romney has his own job creation record and it's pretty embarrassing. While he was governor of Massachusetts, the state ranked 47th in job creation. And in defending that, Romney campaign adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said, "When Mitt Romney arrived, Massachusetts was an economic basket house. If you throw D.C. into the mix, we were 51 out of 51. By the time Mitt Romney left four years later, we were in the middle of the pack. We were 30th in the nation."
In other words: I inherited a very crappy situation and improved it! Don't blame me for the job losses, blame my predecessor who turned the state into a basket case. You'll note that sounds familiar. When Obama has tried to make the same argument, this has been Romney's response: "The president is always quick to find someone to blame."
None of this speaks to what can be done now. The May jobs report, along with other indicators, show an economy that's still suffering from the stress of deleveraging and inadequate demand. The Republican party knows full well that continued economic dysfunction suits their political interest, so they have literally no political incentive to make things better. Which brings us back to Bernanke and why we should start viewing his salary as an in-kind contribution to the Mitt Romney Super PAC. More than any other single individual in the country, Ben Bernanke holds the fate of the US economy in his hands, and as such he holds the fortunes of Barack Obama, the Democratic party and the legacy of liberal governance in his hands as well.
Now you will hear from some quarters, even from Mr. Bernanke himself, that there is not much the Federal Reserve can really do. The Fed's mission is macro-economic management, to steer the economy between two opposing pitfalls: high inflation on the one hand and high unemployment on the other. The tool it uses to navigate this is short-term interest rates. If inflation is getting too high, the Fed can raise rates, making it more expensive to borrow money, slowing the economy and, ultimately bringing inflation down.
On the other hand, when unemployment is high like it is now the Fed can cut interest rates, making it easier to borrow money and giving a boost to economic growth and employment.
You might notice there's a very, very important asymmetry at the heart of the Fed's approach to managing the economy. During times when inflation is stubbornly, persistently high, the Federal Reserve can keep raising rates and raising rates until the fever breaks and inflation comes down. That's precisely what Paul Volcker famously did during the 1970s. Rates went all the way up to 20%, which triggered a recession (one that more or less killed off Jimmy Carter's chances for re-election, but I digress). But what happens if you have, as we do now, persistently high unemployment? Well, you can cut rates, but unlike raising rates—which you can always do more of—after cutting rates a few times, you eventually end up at 0%, and there's nothing left to cut. This is what economists call the Zero Lower Bound.
And it just so happens that the Zero Lower Bound and how central bankers should deal with it was the subject of much of Ben Bernanke's academic research. Bernanke studied the aftermath of financial crises and came to the conclusion that when central banks neared the Zero Lower Bound, they were far too reticent and unwilling to turn to unconventional means of monetary policy. And this reticence caused a whole lot of unnecessary misery in places, like, say, Japan. Here's what he wrote about Japan's central bank's unwillingness to be more aggressive in 2000. "[Japan's] economy has operated below potential for nearly a decade. Nor is it by any means clear that recovery is imminent. Policy options exist that could greatly reduce these losses. Why isn't more happening? To this outsider, at least, Japanese monetary policy seems paralyzed, with a paralysis that is largely self-induced."
In fact, so unconventional was Bernanke's thinking on this, and so creative, that he once famously seemed to endorse Milton Freedman's suggestion that if all else failed, a central bank could just send out helicopters to drop bags of cash on the populace in order to stir growth and bring down unemployment. This earned him the nickname Helicopter Ben.
And yet, while the Federal Reserve did take a variety of unconventional steps during the immediate crisis and its aftermath, for the last 11 months it has been content to sit on its hands, telling Congress to do more, and citing the zero lower bound as an excuse to let its own helicopters sit idle in their hangars. This goes against everything Ben Bernanke said he believed in. How can this be?
This is the great mystery stalking those who closely follow monetary policy. In fact, a friend and fellow economist of Bernanke named Larry Ball has even published a working paper entitled, and I'm paraphrasing: "Why the hell won't the Ben Bernanke of today listen to the Ben Bernanke of yesteryear?" Heck, even articles in the conservative magazine The Economist have urged Bernanke to get off his tuchus.
And while it might seem like an academic argument, a nerdy game of clue, the question of what's gotten into Ben is quite literally the single most pressing question in the entire political economy right now. Congress won't lift a finger to stimulate the economy, and the president can't do very much without it. So Bernanke is, for the next six months, the only game in town.
Many people suspect that Bernanke is letting the economy struggle not because he wants Mitt Romney elected, though let's be clear: Bernanke's a Republican, who served as economic advisor to George W. Bush, and was appointed to the Fed by Bush, but rather because he's under tremendous pressure from the Tea Party/Ron Paul wing of the Federal Reserve Board not to do anything. In fact, bullying Bernanke into quiescence has been an explicit right-wing strategy. Remember this from Texas Gov. Rick Perry?
"If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I dunno what y'all would do to him in Iowa but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."
And yet, while Bernanke faces angry questions from right-wingers before Congress, Democrats are exerting no pressure. It's another kind of destructive asymmetry that will lead to prolonged unemployment and poverty for millions, not to mention the premature end of the Obama era.
So until Mr. Bernanke answers the question of whether he's trying to get Mitt Romney elected, and while there's still a chance for us to avoid another recession, I think it's time Bernanke started to feel some heat from the left.
Leave a Comment:
Right, pretty funny, the guy that sleeps well at night! You keep your job by doing as
little as possible when you are a Civil Servant until you receive direction. So
action-oriented Mr. Bernanke is NOT. Safety is in not rocking the boat and
remaining passive and "stay in your sand box" I was always told, taking initiative is not welcome.
This is dumb. Now Obama is blaming Ben Bernanke for his horrible job record. Ben Bernanke has been the only guy working on fixing this economy doing unprecedented things to keeps rates at historic lows. Obama isn't working.
He didn't work then, he won't work now.
It's no wonder that Romney's job growth was so low when he was leaving Mass. It was at a record low of 4.7% unemployment which meant that anyone that wanted a job was already working, and those that wanted a small break and collect unemployment were doing so the low rate of 4.7%.
D123 - Maybe if you try including some facts or at least describe a plausible scenario we could take you seriously.
I've been thinking about and watching this for a while. Who knows? Would you play poker with this guy? Of course not, he's the oracle, the genie, the miracle worker, the appointed one, who plans on retiring not too long for now. Of course he could change the whole shebang in 6 months or less. He did it before and could do it again. Just open the barn door and let them run. So far, inflation is in check. Thank the baby jesus. For anyone on a fixed income, especially a meager one, like, say, social security, this is the only thing that is saving them from going on the soup line, not that they don't drop in every so often right now, but they would be saving a place in line, if inflation ticks up at all. I don't mean to run on but as a Bernanke watcher (I've got a Home Equity Line), I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn't want to get the Carter Prize for inflation as a legacy, but will step up if the legislators do not in time. He has this figured out. Basically, he's giving the middle finger to everyone (well, mostly Republicans, and they deserve it) right now, but he doesn't really mean it. He's a good guy but don't press him. Sorry for running on but I love the show and this is a very important part of the issues dominating our paralysis today. That's aside from your guest, the Paul guy. Wow. He needs a vacation. One more thing. If you are going to have a conversation, please at least have people who can give expression to views that are in the 21st century or there abouts.
WHY aren't you challenging the Republican's claim that Romney was 30th in job creation? What that is is a manipulation of BLS data. "Job creation" isn't a straight line affair - it runs in jumps and halts. It is the "body of work" that a governor does, NOT what happens in one single one year period.
The 12-month percentage change builds on the numbers from the year before so you REALLY CAN'T just isolate one year because you get NUTTY RESULTS. The Republicans want to claim Romney was 30th for the year 2006-2007 (actually I have him 28th of 51) then you have to accept that Louisiana was 2nd in job creation in that same time period - which is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS!! The people in Lousiana were just coming back to jobs lost during Katrina - there was no "job creation" - in fact Louisiana had lost so many jobs in 2005, that ANY jobs returned would have given them REALLY NICE numbers in the 2006-2007 time period.
If you look at what happened in Louisiana during the whole four year time period 2003-2007, Louisiana was actually 50th in job creation and actually LOST .4% of the jobs it had in 2003. The same goes for Romney: the state of Massachusetts was 48th of 51 in job creation for the time Romney was governor!
To make this simple for those of you who don't understand:
In Year A a company lays off half of its twenty employees, so that at the beginning of Year B the company has ten employees. In the middle of Year B the company hires one employee back so that at the start of Year C the company now has eleven employees.
Now the owner is running around like a chicken with his head cut off telling everyone who will listen that last year was such a great year that he had 10% "job creation" (11-10)/10. Isn't he WONDERFUL?When in fact he still has a 45% JOB LOSS!! (20-11)/20!!
THIS IS where the Republicans are getting their "analysis" for that "Romney was 30th" crap and SOMEONE needs to call them on it!!!!
There are SO MANY ways to "play" with data to get the "answers you want"! It doesn't necessarily mean that what you think you see is true and the Republicans know that. They played games with the data to "make it appear" that Romney's record was better than it was and that IS NOT FAIR to the American public!!!!
Do businesses do this? YEP all the time! Enron was excellent at it - but sooner or later the truth will out!!!
Interesting and well thought out analysis. Of course, democrats play the same game, and it would be nice to see your thought process applied to claims by both republicans and democrats.
Thanks for the writeup. In response to Democrats playing the same game, I haven't seen it as much. In fact, I have never heard democrats tout the GDP growth record after inflation from 1914 (when Inflation numbers started) to present. To wit: 50 Democratic years between 1914 and 2010 saw 767% growth and 48 Republican years saw 118% growth. Looking at 1980-2010, Republicans grew the per capita GDP just slightly over 0% in 20 years and Democrats grew it by around 40% per capita over 10 years.
This is not completely fair because Bill Clinton's record is worse than it appears. He took the NAFTA agreement that George Bush Sr. wrote and that contributed to George Bush Jr's calamitous 0 job growth record and finished passing it. He also supported the Republican repeal of Glass Steagal which most likely amplified the intensity of the eventual collapse. But since all of the modern Republicans are in favor of both of those actions as well, based on his other, positive actions, he is better by comparison.
Hoping the Bernanke can fix the economy instead of focusing on the outrageously dysfunctional congress is like beating the drum to help children learn how to read and write by beating on teachers and schools without putting any focus on the change needed in the home environment. Positive results will be random and infrequent. Chris, you're barking up the wrong tree.
Chris,
After listening to you and your guests today regarding the FED and what it can do to help the economy there is one MAJOR point that no one brought up.
The FED can in essence do what Obama really wants to do and that is raise taxes on the wealthiest americans..... Just think if the major corporations have 2 trillion dollars sitting on the sideline and not spending it and the wealthiest (job creators) are also not spending, then the FED's action should be to increase the money supply immediatly..
Just think if the FED increased the money supply so that the 2 trillion dollars now is only worth 1 trillion dollars (inflation) then it would be prudent for these companies to spend that money now, while it still has value and if the interest rates stay low, then to borrow that money would also be highly profitable.... All of this would create millions of new jobs and a lot of new demand and we would then reverse the current downward spiral.
I have found most of your conversations very insightful.
Barry,
Do you think that perhaps Bernanke is holding off on doing this because he believes Congress is so bound up in ideology that they will allow the United States to fall off the "fiscal cliff" in November? If he does these actions now and yes, they will help now, what tools will he have left in November?
I too wish Bernanke would have "printed" more money a couple of years ago, IF ONLY to get the rich to stop sitting on their wads. But what happens in November if he does that NOW?
"...IF ONLY to get the rich to stop sitting on their wads..."
The fundamental law of capital real asset investment is that it will either be limited by capital dollars, innovation, or product demand. When smart people are unemployed the problem is never innovation and when interest rates are low, the problem is never capital dollars.
The wads will sit until the bottom ninety percent have money. Period.
The good news is when monetary inflation is all going into asset inflation and very little of it is going into price inflation, the bottom 90% can usually supplement lost wages with cashing in on asset growth or asset loans. The bad news is when the music stops, the gap between wages and the previous level of wages plus asset growth is not easily met in an environment of high unemployment and lost finance/real estate jobs. This is what caused hyperdeflation and why they were not able to fix the Great Depression in 1929, 1930, or 1931. It is also why a movement away from a small wages plus large asset growth economy to a large wages plus small asset growth economy like we did in the 1930's under FDR would be extremely prudent.
It is good that the Fed is able to step in when things get really bad, but we must always remember that this is a supply side stimulus and not a demand side stimulus, and therefore has very little leverage to make lasting fixes when scarcity of investment opportunities due to lack of demand and massive increase in investment dollars supply has pushed interest rates to rock bottom levels.
I don't know why Bernanke is holding off... This is what he advocated for Japan years ago. Maybe it's political and maybe it's just old age....... The congress's actions mean abosolutly nothing in this matter so it should not be an infulence.
If he does this now, by November the unemployment will show such improvement that Obama should be a shoe in.
If Congress doesn't act in November, our taxes will go up which means we will have less money to spend, there will be a dramatic decrease in spending by the Federal Government, meaning there will be CONSIDERABLE job loss in this country, and if Bernanke decides to print money now, there will also be inflation. Have you considered these issues?
Increasing jobs now just means there will be bigger layoffs later if Congress doesn't act and Bernanke has to have some method of dealing with that - he sure can't do it with interest rates!
The Japan situation was a little different than what we are facing here, and Japan was extremely worried about "stagflation" since they already knew what that was like, which is why they were so hesitant to print more money.
It would be nice if Bernanke would act now - the economy sure could use the boost - but I'm thinking he knows his Republican members of Congress better than we do - and it appears he has NO FAITH in what they will do!!
To clarify: I DO NOT want Romney to get elected in November - I think that would be an unmitigated disaster for this country. But at the same time, all of us will still be around next year and I'd just as soon as not live through a "depression"!
To be honest with everyone.... I do hope that the taxes do go up in January..... When the government is the primary borrower the lending institutions will not lend money to businesses...... Why should they..... If Government has more money (like the Clinton years) then they are not the borrower of choice.... and business find others to lend to which creates businesses and adds jobs which increases the tax base. That's what Clinton realized... in the last 4 yeas of the Clinton presidency the Government didn't borrow any money so the money lenders lent money to business. This is the upward spiral not smaller government but paid for government... Bushes tax cuts killed this country making it the borrower of choice.....
So - correct me if I have this wrong:
If this is correct, then the folks that have not done everything they could do to help the economy are the same ones that are complaining that the FED has done too much.
AND THAT WOULD BE JUST PLAIN....NUTS!!!
i think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head!
Then you add in the very real possibility that these same Republicans will benefit politically if the economy is bad and you get ... what is the word I'm looking for ...
(suggestions?)
mapl,
it's actually MORE than one word:
You get a political party that is more interested in "capturing" the presidency for themselves, than they are with what the people of the country need from them.
"Deliberate sabotage". "Treason" might not be too harsh.
maphi (sorry, for some reason before I was always calling you mapl!), you have some good words there!!
Hayes brings up some good points, but his obvious bias undermines his credibility. He points out that there has been an anemic 50,000 net gain of jobs in the private sector during Obama's watch while conveniently omitting the concomitant net loss of 550,000 jobs overall. Similarly, he dismisses Massachusetts' economic improvement from 51 to 30. In actuality, this is an impressive achievement in just four years. The problem with Obama's reign is that we haven't just failed to move up to 'the middle of the pack', but that economically we are much worse off than when he started. This contrasts significantly with the improvement in Massachusetts under Romey's stewardship. My point isn't that Mitt is necessarily better than Obama (Mitt certainly has his shortcomings). My point is that the news is so biased towards the left or right, depending on the source, that we independents in the middle have a difficult time finding a reliable source that presents the facts without a biased perspective. This bias undermines what could have otherwise been an admirable article by Haynes.
I'm confused about these job numbers.
In my handy FRED app, for Total Nonfarm Private Payroll Employment (Seasonally Adjusted) graph, employment on 1/1/2009 was 111,404,000 (in mid-freefall. Bottomed out 1/1/2010 at 107,127,000 and on 5/1/2012 was 110,716,000.
2/1/2009 was 110,625,000 - so a drop of 779,000 (The month Obama was inaugurated)
Where are you (& Chris) getting "anemic 50,000 net gain of jobs in the private sector"?
2012 research.stlouisfed.org
As for finding a "reliable source that presents the facts without a biased perspective", I try to find the facts on my own [CBO, Financial Management Service ( www.fms.treas.gov), Bureau of Labor Statistics] on not rely on the pundits.
Independent;
Reread what I wrote above. Romney didn't "improve" from 51 to 30. If you want to give governor "credit for a 1 year "bounce" then you also have to give him "credit" for the fact that although in 2003 and 2004 Massachusetts had LOWER unemployment than the national average, was "slightly" less in 2005, in 2006, Massachusetts unemployment numbers were ABOVE the national average. So although he had a "bounce" in job creation in 2006-2007, he did no where NEAR what the other states were doing - meaning that other states were STEADILY increasing their "job creation" numbers so that they didn't have the big "bounce" in one year, which is why Romney was actually 48th of 51 in "job creation".
Forgive me, but am I wrong in thinking even 30th/50 isn't all that great???? To me, I wouldn't be bragging even about THAT number!
Of COURSE, the governor isn't the only entity that has an affect on state employment rates - there are many other factors to consider. But this conversation is necessary because ROMNEY and his cohorts are trying to MAKE it an issue!! THEY are the ones who came up with the phoney 30 number and tried to pass that off on the American Public as some "great" accomplishment.
Do I do this to Democrats too? You bet - I'm no fan of Obama either - I think he did a lousy job - I just think Romney and his Citizen United cohorts would hurt our country MUCH more!! But what I will say is that in this election year, it is the Republicans who are "playing with the numbers" most AND being the most untruthful, so I spend more time analyzing THEIR "statistics"!
mapl,
You want to copy this address to go to "data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/srgate" (for some reason, I can't put in links here - a glitch with my browser probably)
and in the box that shows up type in:
CES0000000001
CES9000000001
CES0500000001
(CES00...is the number for all employees, CES90 is the number for government employees, and CES05 is the number for private employees)
Then hit next and the next page you need to pick the type of data (I usually choose original data and 12-month percent change, choose your years, choose a month, and "retrieve data". Then you can do your calculations for yourself and ignore what the politicals are saying.
Err - choose all time periods and it will give you the data for each month.
@oncearepublican
I followed your link. I had seen this page - and it helps if you already know the series IDs. The same data can be obtained on other pages (had to update my Java version to get it)
When you include the graphs, it emphasizes the number of government jobs lost.
It is amazing the amount of detailed data that is readily available.
My point exactly - get the data yourself.
Then - not ignore - but listen to the politicians and pundits and determine if they are truth-tellers or not and make judgments about what they have to say accordingly.
Essentially - if you can't trust what they say the data is, you can't trust their opinions and conclusions.
maphi,
You are right of course!
30th in the nation is just for a single year, and 51st in the nation is also just for a single year.
the 47th or 48th number is actually from taking all the years under Mitt Romney, and is worse than taking all the years under the predecessor or successor. Since it takes jobs at the beginning and jobs at the end and looks at everything that happened in the middle, it is far more reliable.
In fact, there is a consistent record of Republican presidents having their best year in their fourth year of the term (excluding Bush 2b of course). You can either imagine this as a lag effect or as them gaming the system much better than democrats due, but when you consider that Republican second terms are worse than Republican first terms, unlike Democrat second terms which are better, and the two Republican third terms have been outright disasters for the country (1929-1933 and 1989-1993 when Debt/GDP rose to 65% compared with 30% in 1980), you have to attribute this to the Gaming the system hypothesis.
Bernanke is sitting on his printing machine for the very good reason that its his last Ace in an otherwise bum hand. The GOP will crucify him if he does it now -- but they will have no legs if he waits til things are somewhat worse.
Denis
We can be reasonably certain that Ben has a timing problem for the use of his favorite tools.
He's hoping against hope that there is slight upturn over the next month or two which can happen -- and to which things will respond much more nicely to his printing machine when he turns it on, doing much more for the eco than turning on the same faucet right now as we plebes are wishing he would do. He's got a tough decision making period ahead of him -- give him a few prayers and not a lotta guff!!!
Energy prices will continue downward and this will be a plus plus/
Denis
Don't count on that! It all depends on how the market reacts to Spain's bailout and if Greece decides to leave the eurozone.
If Europe manages to put another "band-aid" on their problems, gas prices will increase!
China will "manage" their economy so that their effect on gas prices will be minimal.
The begining of a new school year always brings a boost in consumer buying..
Last chance vacations before school kick-in.
Then the stores begin to hire for the increase in Holiday
Feds and the president are waiting for something....possibly the results of the European meltdown..So they can make a long range decision on our economy.
I
decreasing energy prices are only a short term plus. Long term they encourage malinvestment due to non-recognition of externalities.
First of all, I want to make clear that I am no friend of the Fed. Second, I also want to make clear that I think Obama and Romney are equally bad candidates, and that our country will be worse off no matter which one gets elected in November.
Having said that, I want to ask Chris Hayes a question. Clearly, Mr. Hayes, you believe that the Fed has not created enough new money out of thin air. So my question to you is, how much more do you want the Fed to create?
The reason I ask is that more than tripling the monetary base doesn't seem to be enough for you. There seem to be no limits to your desire to debase the currency.
So how high is your version of "up", Mr. Hayes?
If that is your only tool, then the answer is, whatever it takes to stay out of Great Depression 2.
But your question is interesting in the sense that monetary stimulation is supply side, and you can most easily fix a demand-side problem with demand-side stimulus.
The thing that will ultimately bring us out of our precarious situation is when workers are able to buy most of what they need out of wages without having to rely on asset growth to supplement.
Where the conservatives have it wrong is, there is no "natural" level of wages. In fact it takes about 3 board members to unionize at the top, but hundreds of employees to unionize at the bottom, and when wages are too far below revenues (ie too small a portion of revenues is coming from wages), your only choices are to cause enough asset inflation to make up the difference, or to let wages go down to the minimum intra-company comparitive advantage level and then disappear.
This is why third world countries have remained third world countries for hundreds of years without improving and why the US risked joining their ranks in the early thirties. Quite likely if there had been a fourth Republican term from 1933-1937 we would have had a violent uprising or transitioned into a military dictatorship, in which case we would likely have been the fourth Axis power.
I'm about ten minutes in and I'm already wondering if Peter Schiff intends to shut up long enough to let anyone else finish a sentence.
Ah he is not the show today sunday the 10th...
The DNC dude just said "obama's record is robust"
Over 40 million on food stamps.
Over 8% unemployment for the past 3 1/2 years..
Small companies closing.
Small banks closing.
Yea one hell of a record....
So what is next mayor billionaire..
What toppings I can have on my pizza???
Who many ribs I can have on my plate???
Fat kids get fat at home not at public restaurant.....
NYC leading the way to socialism.....
Excellent, well-reasoned responses
... are not your forte'.
Mr. Rodgers??????????? WOW
I normally admire Chris Hayes, and I normally despise Ben Bernanke, but Chris dropped the ball on this story.
-- the Fed only controls interest rates. It does not control unemployment. It does not control the money supply, contrary to popular myth. Nor does it control inflation, contrary to popular myth, except under certain circumstances when raising interest rates may dampen inflation (or not -- the causes of inflation are disputed among economists).
-- the Fed has a Congressional mandate to control both unemployment and inflation, yet Congress has not given the Fed the policy tools to control either.
-- there is much talk about raising the inflation target to 4%. But the Fed does not control inflation, only interest rates. Also, the Fed has a Congressional mandate to target 2% inflation. Only Congress has the legal authority to change the inflation target, so why is everyone blaming Bernanke, rather than Congress ?
-- while Bernanke may once suggested that Japan should drop money from a helicopter, the Fed does not have the legal authority to do that. Congress does have the legal authority. So why are you blaming Ben, rather than Congress ?
-- Chris did not include any post-Keynesian economists on his show. In the future, I suggest that Chris contact Stephanie Kelton, the Dean of Economics at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and ask her to weigh in on economic issues. The post-Keynesians have a radically different view of economic policy compared to the Neoliberals who got us into this mess.
-- Ben once suggested that Japan should depreciate the yen. He has since changed his mind. In any event, the Fed does not have the legal authority to set exchange rate policy, the Treasury does. Depreciation carries the downside of driving up import prices -- like oil, so even if we succeeded in depreciating the dollar, it might not be good for the US economy.
-- Ben once suggested that Japan should target long term rates. The 10 year treasury is setting record lows, currently around 1.6%, in part due to Ben's actions. So what's the problem ?
-- Ben once suggested Japan cut taxes. Agree, but that's up to Congress, not the Fed.
I am not a fan of Bernanke, but this one time he is right. The Fed is doing all it can do, the rest is up to Congress and the Executive branch, who have dropped the ball.
Up is, by far the most informative news show on TV. I look forward to your show on Sat & Sun, particularly your eclectic panel of guests. It's a permanent on my DVR presets so I won't miss it, ever. Getting into the weeds of the Fed's influence in our economic system has taught me, a non-economist, a great deal about how the system functions.
I find it deeply frustrating that the Fed could be more proactive re: the states fiscal crisis. It's quite revealing to those of us in the 99% who matters in Washington considering the Fed's 2008 emergency 'helicopters of cash' dropped on Wall St fraudsters. Juxstapose the speed of that response with their lack of response to the states. Many state employees would still be working and contributing to the economy today rather than being unemployed.
One more thing. I must comment about Jonathan Alter's position that state worker's pension funds should be cut. The bald hypocrisy of a millionaire pundit pontificating on average worker pension cuts would be funny if it didn't have such harmful implications. State workers pay a predetermined, mandatory percentage of their salaries into those funds and trust that the fund manager invests it wisely.
Unless Alter thinks state and government workers are slaves, we work (read: perform tasks, provide services, spend our days and/or nights on the job) for low, but usually fair wages in exchange for a paltry pension and lower payments for group insurance.
Someone should expose the REAL reason state pension funds are in shortfall. In 1959, the Justice Dept indicted Jimmy Hoffa for "borrowing" from the Teamsters pension fund. Hoffa planned to invest the money in a financial scheme, that when he cashed out, he would repay the teamsters retirement fund. That used to be called fraud.
Through 1990's govt officials all over the US started "borrowing" from government workers pension funds- saying they'd pay it back when financial coffers grew. 30 years of tax breaks for millionaires, billionaires, and capital gains tax cuts drained state coffers and govt officials never returned those "borrowed " funds. If it quacks like a duck... it must be a duck, (i.e., FRAUD). But no. It's those greedy police, firemen, teachers, janitors, and government office clerks who don't "deserve" their 'expensive pension plans.
The financial industry wants all of our money- state, federal pensions AND social security to enrich themselves. Tools in the media like Alter will happily be their mouthpieces.
Sen. Murkowski told CNN in a 1998 interview after the Tom Delay & Jack Abramoff scandal in the Marianas was exposed: "The last time we heard a justification that economic advances would be jeopardized if workers were treated properly was shortly before Appomattox."
"Up" is not a news show by any stretch of the imagination.
It is a one sided socialist outlet.
Hayes is a socialist and he admits it.
He deals in 1/2 truths, not facts, and hot clips anyone on the right.
Remember last fall when he had mike daisey on the show no less than 3 times.
And made that POS sound like a saint!!!!! DUd eis full of Bull$hit made up most of his bash on Foxcon.