White House Confident Senate Will OK Bernanke

[eyeontheprize]

Source: ABC News

Bernanke, appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, is widely credited with helping to prevent the recession from turning into a depression. But his support of Wall Street bailouts has angered the public as the country struggles with double-digit unemployment and soaring home foreclosures.

Gibbs tells "Fox News Sunday" that lawmakers would send a bad message to financial markets by "playing politics in any way" with Bernanke's nomination.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9648244

---

At least the WH got the message in the Massachusetts election.

There are six senators or so who will vote against the reconfirmation, so it looks like the WH will keep Goldman in charge.

[Kolesar]

1. Who says "Wall Street bailouts has angered the public"

I don't hear people starting conversations about the bailouts. I think they were successful--to me. My portfolio did not crater (for a second time) and I still have my job.

B/S journalism

[Bluebear]

3. You're kidding. You haven't heard anyone say "where's MY bailout"?

[howaboutme]

25. POLL - It's a club

and you and I ain't in it........George Carlin. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/331953

CNBC Poll on Bernanke: Wall St club has been propagandizing on his benefit for weeks and they should because he's been and continues to be their biggest benefactor for years (just as Greenspan) to the detriment of America. Free money at taxpayer risk so they can invest in Europe or China and make huge profits and be rewarded with big bonuses. Wait until the USA loses reserve currency status and it will be too late. We need a major shakeup in the Treasury and the Fed and remove the inbreeding and those joined at the hip with Wall St.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/35012606

[fasttense]

4. In any other country that had our unemployment rate, our underemployment rate,

our long term unemployment rate, our every increasing foreclosure rate, our huge bankruptcy rate, our increasing poverty rate, our homeless rate and food stamp rate, there would be rioting in the streets.

Even in communist China officials say, if the country allowed the unemployment rate to hit 10%, the government would be finished. Only in the US do people shrug and say oh well, I'm doing fine (for now) so I can just ignore the alarm bells of a collapsing society.

[Lorien]

11. And those who aren't doing well think that it's "just them", and that if they use some positive

magical thinking (ala "The Secret") then all will be well and they'll become millionaires. After all, we each individually control the universe/ should pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps/ no one "owes" anyone anything.....which is why we are the "greatest Nation on earth".

:sarcasm:

[Mithreal]

16. +1

[spotbird]

7. They sure do in my part of the woods

Where is the "change" in the continuation of Bush policy?

[Enrique]

12. wow

that is SO different from what I'm hearing.

[unabelladonna]

15. listen, my DH and i retired early

and living quite comfortably off our investments, but i can see what's happening to this country. young families are STRUGGLING, the jobs will not return.

sure if i wanted to remain sequestered in my gated community i'd believe everyone was doing just fine but everyone isn't doing just fine. it's bad out there.

[Mithreal]

17. +1

[Iowa]

21. Yep...

And those of us who are doing well have kids/grandkids who won't, which undermines our security... all it would take is a son/daughter without a job or health insurance and a devastating injury/illness. Their insecurity is our insecurity - as any parent knows. Furthermore, the investments keeping us afloat are exposed to the incompetence of Wall Street and the banking system. A round of hyper-inflation would push most of us to the margins. We live in a country where only the mega-wealthy are secure, and where the middle class is under attack.

The underpinnings of the entire financial system are unstable, and all of the people who brought us to this point are still in place. Not only has there been no punishment for bringing our economy to its knees, all of those who are responsible continue to profit from their actions (or their failure to act). By backing Bernanke, a Bush appointee, Obama is propping up the status-quo, rewarding those responsible for the devastation, and virtually ensuring that it will occur again.

[Kolesar]

23. It seems like the "whiners" in my circle are whining about something else

"Gated community" - LOL

[msongs]

2. gee Mr. Gibbs, maybe it's not about politics but competence. nt

[nyy1998]

5. And Bernanke did what most Fed Reserve Chairmans would've done

From a monetary policy standpoint, he did everything he possible could, including lowering interest rates to nearly 0%. Where's the incompetence?

[spotbird]

6. He caused the crisis in the first place

but let's not cloud the issue history.

[nyy1998]

24. I would say it was Greenspan that was more responible.

If you want to talk about how he lowered interest rates and created a housing bubble, then be my guess. My beef isn't with Bernanke, but with Greenspan

[ozymandius]

9. His incompetence helped create the fire that nearly burned down our house.

So we should give him a medal for helping to extinguish the fire?

We all should feel righteous indignation over his nomination to this position. Just as banksters have rewarded themselves with bonuses when, by rights, their institutions should have cratered with stock-based retirement accounts. Bernanke stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Paulson and Geithner in being wrong every step of the way in anticipating economic problems and forming policy to confront them.

Go through the his public record. Every word this idiot has uttered has been wrong. From the "sub-prime is contained" stupidity to his authoring of the leverage rules that allowed Bear Stearns to leverage assets 40-to-1.

What manner of authority should Bernanke wield? Certainly not Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

[Mithreal]

19. Then you are ignoring the counter-arguments and few require second guessing

[Mithreal]

18. Singing my song. Who would have imagined we would be in a place right now

where we would even need to question competence of President Obama and his choices.

Sorry state of the union it is.

[InkAddict]

8. Of course the WH is confident

The SCOTUS has rendered the People's voice irrelevant in the hallowed halls of the joke that passes for our Congress aka paid corpulent corporate whores. It's now only a Polictical thing among themselves, the Senators/Congressman, to see which whore can elicit and accummulate the biggest pile of ilicit, steaming piles of fake monies (Fed Reserve Notes) for use by their DEAF administrative staffs and hidden away in BLIND trusts (HAHA), bonuses and Roman Holidays during and following the day they end their laughable public service, and for use when they hold the DUMB AND DUMBER public elections so the little people, educated in underfunded public schools, are pacified into believing that they have a voice in deciding if the incumbent whore can continue collecting or whether some new shiny whore should get the opportunity to be seated at the crap tables that WS runs for their amusement.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. Oh I am sure the WH is.

:puke:

[defendandprotect]

13. Disgusting that WH is supporting this!!

[unabelladonna]

14. get rid of the entire team of financial appointees

and start by appointing academics who are not connected to wall street and banks. i have no confidence in pigs like heithner bernanke.

[Mithreal]

20. Corporate money buys a lot of confidence. Grassroots not so much, eh?

[Metta]

22. WH = Wall Street. Suffering on Main Street? Colateral damage. If they cared, it'd be different.

I'm just saying.