Rewarding Failure at the Fed

[Joe Chi Minh]

Source: Guardian (UK) online

While millions of Americans have lost their jobs, Washington allows Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to keep his.

(snip) ..... This is what a responsible Fed policy would have looked like. But Ben Bernanke did not pursue a responsible Fed policy. He insisted that everything was just fine until he had to run to Congress last September, saying that if it didn't immediately give $700bn to the banks through the Tarp programme then the economy would collapse.

How on earth can you do worse in your job as Fed chair than bring the economy to the brink of a total collapse? If this is success, what does failure look like?

But, in Washington no one is ever held accountable for their performance. The economic collapse is treated like a fluke of nature – a hurricane or an earthquake – and not the result of enormous policy failures.

So, it is the 15 million unemployed that go without work, not Ben Bernanke. Instead, many of the senators praise Bernanke to the sky and thank him for his service. The running line in the Senate is: "It could have been worse."

That is the way Washington works these days. And, everyone should be very very disgusted.


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/dec/21/ben-bernanke-fed-chairman-reappointment

---

These concluding paragraphs of the article are its searing, but unexceptionable, conclusion.

[bemildred]

1. Rewarding failure is what the "free market system" is all about.

Corporate feudalism is still feudalism.

[izquierdista]

2. Making it worse

How could it be worse?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_hlMK7tCks
Other than having Dubya as Fed chairman, I mean.

[pjt7]

3. Audit these bankers

Audit the Fed.

[Vidar]

4. K&R.