Thursday, March 19, 2009

The Fed is Late to the Party

Where has Bernanke been? Throughout 2007 as the credit markets deteriorated, Bernanke focused his attention on inflation. Now that the credit markets have begun improving dramatically and the major commercial banks are knocking the cover off the ball with after tax earnings, Bernanke decides to spend a trillion dollars to get things going? Where has he been?

Bernanke has said over and over again recently that deflation is the great bugaboo. Really? You couldn't tell that from the CPI readings for January and February, up 0.3 % and 0.4 % respectively. That's about a 4 to 5 percent annual rate. Is that deflation? Oil and commodity prices have begun to spurt up again and the dollar has started to implode. Is that deflationary?

Has Bernanke got a crystal ball that no one else has seen? Why is deflation now public enemy number one? Is he kidding?

This recession will soon hit botton -- within two to three months at the latest (assuming Obama's budget package runs into trouble, which I expect). Then what? The Bernanke binge will lead to signficant commodity inflation and asset price inflation.

The Obama-Congress sideshow on AIG bonuses is embarrasing. They complain about 1/10 of a bilion dollars of bonuses after they threw $ 200 billion into AIG without asking any questions. Who is kidding who? Is this issue really worth the attention that it is getting? Is this the statesmanship-like approach to the issues that Obama promised in his candidacy or is this just more of what seems to be an unending campaign of villification of the private sector by this president? Is this adminstration all about theatrics and vindictiveness? That's what it seems.