Bernanke circles around the truth:
Europe has a debt crisis. America has a jobs crisis. Corporate profits could be in trouble. World financial markets are in turmoil. And no one seems prepared to ride to the rescue. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke bluntly warned Congress on Tuesday of what most of America has sensed for some time: The economic recovery, such as it is, “is close to faltering.”
“Such as it is.” For those of you who aren’t fluent in Fedspeak, allow me to translate:
There is no recovery. There never was any recovery and all of my talk of green shoots and economic growth was a failed attempt to raise those all-important animals spirits while I flooded the banks with money. But the happy talk isn’t working and is actually becoming counter-productive as the gulf between it and observable reality continues to widen, so I’m going to dial it back a bit in order to retain some semblance of credibility. God help us all, because I am totally out of ammo.
And this was an interesting admission: “I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what’s happening. They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess. And they’re dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can’t blame them.”
Yes, the massive borrowing that took the financial sector from 0.85% of the total U.S. debt to 32.66% in 2008 might just have a little to do with the current problem. But no, Helicopter, people aren’t protesting Wall Street because of 9% unemployment and slow growth, they’re protesting because they know Wall Street gambled big, lost heavily, and then robbed them and went back into the casino.