I was watching Robert Gibbs discussing the reasons that 'we Americans' should be supporting President Obama's confidence in the confirmation for Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the FED, and it all felt so, familiar to me....it sounded kind of, sort of... like a veiled threat, in you know, a nice kind of way, but none the less, I didn't really like the tone of it.
Gibbs sounded to me, like what he was saying was: If we don't vote for Bernanke, Wall Street might, you know..... blow up. I saw the video of Gibbs on a website I go to called: http://market-ticker.denninger.net/... I don't watch Fox News, but the video was Gibbs on that horrifying channel, and I cannot help but wonder what the hell he meant when asked what would happen if Bernanke was not confirmed:
Asked about the potential financial repercussions of the U.S. Senate voting against Bernanke, Gibbs said, "The best way to not have to deal with those repercussions is to support Ben Bernanke for a second term."
Excuse me, but what the fuck does that even mean? Let's break it down, shall we? Ok - Gibbs is saying, essentially that if Bernanke is not confirmed there will be: 'repercussions.'
Let's see here - repercussions in the thesaurus:
repercussion - a remote or indirect consequence of some action; "his declaration had unforeseen repercussions"; "reverberations of the market crash were felt years later"
reverberation, consequence, effect, result, upshot, outcome, event, issue - a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon; "the magnetic effect was greater when the rod was lengthwise"; "his decision had depressing consequences for business"
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/...
My question, is what about the repercussions the United States has had at the hand of Bernanke's stewardship? What about 'those repercussions'? And since Mr. Bernanke is still in complete denial that he has held any responsibility for his part in driving the economy off the cliff, what about 'future repercussions' of trusting this idiot again with the 'keys to the car'...what about 'those repercussions?'
I remember the last time 'we' (and Congress) were threatened with the Wall Street Will Blow Up threat by Henry Paulson demanding $700 Billion dollars (with no string attached) by holding a gun to our heads and threatening members of Congress with Martial Law:
So what has changed here, except that Robert Gibbs is making the same kind of veiled threat, in a 'good cop' kind of way, but still, what is the difference?
Repercussions? What about these repercussions that will continue if we allow Bernanke to be reconfirmed, because as of today, Bernanke honestly believes that he hasn't made any 'errors'...
Bernanke intentionally allowed the growth of credit aggregates at rates of 50% to 100% faster than GDP over the last decade, a direct violation of the law governing The Federal Reserve and the underlying and necessary predicate for the bubble to occur. He was, in fact, the loudest Federal Reserve advocate of Greenspan's "easy money" policies after the 2000 Nasdaq market collapse. Bernanke has willfully and intentionally ignored basic mathematical facts related to the growth in credit aggregates - specifically, that permitting credit aggregates to grow faster than GDP always must eventually, if maintained, lead to a massive credit bust. This is a function of basic mathematics - specifically, exponents. All the fancy "econometric models" in the world cannot violate the basic laws of mathematics.
Bernanke refused to regulate lending and securitization by the banks during the housing bubble despite the fact that the FBI issued a formal warning of massive fraud in 2004 and both HUD and Corelogic issued studies in 2005 and 2006 showing nine of ten borrowers in "ALT-A" loans had lied about their incomes. Without suckers to buy these worthless securities this irresponsible lending could not have taken place. He willfully refused to both conform with the law and regulate the banks fostered the environment in which they have and continue to asset-strip the citizens of this nation. Bluntly put the big banks are paying out 1% of GDP to a few thousand people not due to hard work, industry and innovation but rather due to rank exploitation and deliberate mispricing of risk with the costs of these outrageous and intentional acts shifted to the citizens of this nation. In addition, Bernanke has intentionally concealed the terms and beneficiaries of bailouts and handouts despite multiple requests from Congress and The Press, has fought FOIA requests, has ignored Congress outright.
Bernanke has in fact been dead wrong on virtually every pronouncement he has made over the last ten years on economic matters, including claims that there was no housing bubble as late as 2006, that subprime was contained, that we would not experience a recession, that his policy prescriptions would stabilize the economy and job market and that if EESA/TARP was passed the stock market would not collapse. Each and every one of those claims was in fact wrong. Bernanke claimed, in sworn testimony, that he would not monetize the debt. While he was speaking - almost literally to the hour - The Federal Reserve was in fact monetizing $300 billion in Treasury debt and $1.2 trillion in Fannie and Freddie Securities - securities we now know are stuffed full of fraudulent mortgages that Fannie and Freddie bought during the bubble years. He has refused to accept responsibility for his policies. Bernanke claims to have a plan to exit his "extraordinary measures" but has refused to explain that plan. This is likely because he has not supported the mortgage-backed security market, he is, in fact, the market, having now bought literally more than the entire net issuance in 2009! The reason Bernanke has not explained his exit strategy is simple: he doesn't have one. Finally, Bernanke has willfully and intentionally ignored obvious and clear indications of front-running in the bond market while he has been running his "quantitative easing." There have been inexplicable pricing moves in the Treasury Market in the very specific issues that were then bought by The Fed just hours or days later. While there is no "smoking gun" proving that The Fed has communicated to certain market participants what would be bought, and then intentionally overpaid for those very same securities, it is impossible to look at this market's performance in an objective, statistical fashion over the last year and not reach the inescapable conclusion that someone, or a handful of someones, have been cheating.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/
A recent poll indicated that 47 percent of the American people did not believe the Ben Bernanke was working for Main Street, and the reason? Because it's the friggin truth..........DUH.
I'm getting the feeling that is really what is going on here is that 'push in coming to shove' in the White House, and the current Wall Street Goldman Sachs club that are surrounding the President are giving President Obama the 'bum's rush' on making sure that their old pal 'Bernanke' stays in place, no matter what.
After all, Bernanke's been Wall Street's best friend, just as was Greenspan. They have been able to make a 'killing' on the misery of the rest of Americans, nearly and more quickly as the days go by, destroying what is left of the Middle Class. Wall Street, the Banks and the Federal Reserve have finally figured out how to 'tap right into the major artery' going straight from our wallets, and right into theirs regardless of the consequences, and regardless if they fail. Fail they win, that's the new 'law of the land.' The only ones that are left in the entire country that are NOT TO BE TO FAIL are us, the taxpayers, and given the chance (and they certainly are being given every benefit of the doubt - with absolutely no accountability) these voracious money addicted crack whores, will end up sucking every little bit of blood left in our veins.
I mean, why don't they just call back 'FEMA Brownie' and ask him to take Bernanke's job? What's the difference? Oh, right, now I remember, one of them was held responsible for letting New Orleans drown, killing hundreds and causing mayhem and disgrace because of Katrina, and the other one, is only responsible for letting the entire United States drown, killing hundreds and causing mayhem and disgrace for letting Wall Street and the Banks make a financial killing reaping billions of dollars off of the backs of the now poverty stricken Americans......
Sheesh, what's the matter with me, of course there's a big difference between those two guys...what's the matter with me?
Bernanke or Brownie - what the fuck is the difference?
Over 25 million people have lost their jobs, hundreds of thousands of foreclosures, people's savings and retirements literally stolen from them, we have so much toxic dept we are drowning in it, but hey, whatever we do, let's make sure that we keep Brownie Bernanke in place. Yeah, that's really really smart.
Because the 'last' thing 'we' want to do is 'upset' Wall Street and the Bankers.
The White House has been in lobbying mode, trying to convince lawmakers that Bernanke deserves a second term at the help of the central bank. The Senate is expected to vote this week before Bernanke's four-year term ends on Jan. 31.
Big manufacturers, software companies and retailers may get a boost of confidence if the chairman's tenure continues. Many of these companies fear a defeat of Bernanke could trigger a stock market slump of unknown duration and severity -- just the kind of uncertainty the firms and the economy as a whole want to avoid.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who appeared on "Fox News Sunday," said a new four-year term for the central bank head is needed to ensure stability domestically and abroad. "I think now would be a particularly bad time to send a signal to the international community and to our overall financial system by playing politics in any way with this upcoming vote," Gibbs said.
The count right now on both sides of the isles is that 15 Senators are voting against Bernanke including Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley. Many are undecided, but I hope that he will not be reconfirmed.
The corruption and the looting of our nation must stop, and we need a new fresh start in our key financial sectors. We need to replace Bernanke for the sake of credibility because in every single instance he has been wrong for the past 10 years in his 'academic sorcery' that somehow, strange as it is, always seems to work in favor of Wall Street...funny how that happens, isn't it?
That is because the jig is finally up - there is no difference between Wall Street and the FED or the Banks, they are all working in concert together, and the 'suckers' are 'we the people' to believe otherwise. If this meltdown has taught us anything, it should at least embracing that ugly reality.
And now, for the 'Most Frightening Story of the Week Award'....this guy has written a book 'proving' that what really happened in the financial meltdown was that a bunch of 'totally out of control computer wizard geeks' were playing around with numbers on the stock market and that these are really the culprits who 'roh ro' accidently caused the entire financial meltdown in a chain reaction that ....'roh ro' they could not stop:
In his new book, "The Quants," Wall Street Journal reporter Scott Patterson suggests how this new breed of mathematicians and computer scientists took over much of the financial system—and the damage they inflicted in the 2007 meltdown.
At Morgan Stanley's investing powerhouse Process Driven Trading on Monday, Aug. 6, founder Peter Muller was AWOL, visiting a friend near Boston. Mike Reed and Amy Wong manned the helm, PDT veterans from the days when the group was nothing more than a thought experiment, its traders a small band of young math whizzes tinkering with computers like brainy teenagers in a cluttered garage.
On Wall Street, they were all known as "quants," traders and financial engineers who used brain-twisting math and superpowered computers to pluck billions in fleeting dollars out of the market. Instead of looking at individual companies and their performance, management and competitors, they use math formulas to make bets on which stocks were going up or down. By the early 2000s, such tech-savvy investors had come to dominate Wall Street, helped by theoretical breakthroughs in the application of mathematics to financial markets, advances that had earned their discoverers several shelves of Nobel Prizes.
http://online.wsj.com/...
If this is really true, I may just jump off the Golden Gate Bridge because between President Obama and Robert Gibbs 'telling us all' that there will be 'repercussions' if we dare not vote for Ben Bernanke, and perhaps knowing that this meltdown was actually caused by a bunch of 'geek computer financial wizards' that couldn't get a date if their life depended on it on a Saturday night, I just don't think I could go on, knowing that this is how insane our country has really become.
Thanks