With Ben Bernanke's double-speak news conference today, it's no wonder that no fed chairman has ever attempted this before. They have to guard their answers so carefully that they talk in circles. The couple of times where he seemed to actually answer a question without a vague generality it was undone it in the next answer.
Bernanke unimpressed me so much that I had to stop watching halfway through.
He said that we need a strong dollar, but he is doing all he can to keep it weak.
He said we need price stability, yet his monetary policy is fueling inflation.
He said we need maximum employment - at least he acknowledged that this idea wasn't going so well.
He said we need to keep inflation low, but his policies have driven us gas prices like never before.
He said that gasoline prices are creating hardship on famililies, but attributes the price increase to supply and demand. We can fix the supply. It's called drilling.
He said that gas prices accounts for all the increase in inflation, but shrugged his shoulders and said that there is not much the fed can do. Can't raise interest rates? Can't stop printing money? Can't stop buying treasuries? Can't pull down the money supply?
He said that he can't create more oil (no but we can with drilling starting tomorrow and refineries starting next week) to try to keep higher gas prices from passing into other areas and increasing prices in those other areas. Does he not understand that higher fuel prices increase food costs and everything else that is manufactured? Then it continues to increase as products are moved about in the marketplace?
It's no wonder we are in the mess we are in with this lack of leadership.
Andrew Jackson was right to abolish the central bank.
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Steve Hoffacker - Consultant, Coach, Author, Blogger, Photographer, Motivator, Teacher, & Strategist - for Realtors, Real Estate Sales Professionals, Home Builders, New Home Salespeople, Entrepreneurs, Small Business Owners, and Independent Sales Representatives.
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