Does Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke really think he can bail-out

[whistle]

... the subprime mortgage market, in order to save the entire $16.7 trillion U.S. mortgage bubble? Such a bailout will end only in disaster.

Bernanke and his Plunge Protection Team have thrown up a wall of money totaling over $235 billion in an attempt to curb the rupture of the $1.2 trillion subprime maortgages only to reveal that the total known home mortgage bubble is at least twelve times greater and in just as much a liquidity threat as the subprimes.

Erecting another Great Wall of new money to cover that will be like throwing gasoline onto the the hyperinflationary fire already ignited by the Fed's actions of the past 22 days.

[Selatius]

1. The inflation people are feeling out on the street is probably approaching 10 percent or higher now.

Cutting interest rates at this point, while it may blunt the impact of the exploding bubble, could very well drive inflation at the counter up another percentage point or more. The large amount of inflation is due to oil price shocks.

Personally, I would've left interest rates where they are, in deference to the fact that there is a large amount of inflation with consumer goods in the current timeframe, even if "core inflation" still reports inflation as tame. As far as sub-prime lenders go, let them burn. I'm not going to cut interest rates when you're seeing something approaching 10 percent per year with consumer goods. The Fed should pursue a long-term policy of maintaining price stability. This is not price stability at all.

[whistle]

2. I feel the inflation every week I go grocery shopping

[rucky]

3. On a completely unreltated note...

Kroger posts record profits this quarter.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5146067.html

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. if he doesn't try, he gets a perfect storm

recession, inflation, and angry, extremely rich, GOP-based speculators.

We already have two of the three.