Posted on 12/17/2009 6:49:40 PM PST by Rufus2007
If you believe polls, current Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke favorability has been slipping. A recent Rasmussen Reports poll indicates that only 21 percent of Americans favor his reappointment as the Fed chair.
And this hasn't gone unnoticed by some members of the Senate, where Bernanke's fate lies. Bernanke's reconfirmation passed through the Senate Banking Committee by a 16-to-7 vote on Dec. 17. But that margin calls into question how his reconfirmation vote on the Senate floor could go. And as CNBC "The Kudlow Report" host Larry Kudlow warned, that puts his reconfirmation in question.
"Look, ‘Helicopter' Ben passed the Senate Banking Committee vote on his reconfirmation," Kudlow said on his Dec. 17 program. "He got 16-to-7, but he lost seven votes. I think all the Republicans except Sen. Bob Corker voted against Bernanke, and they were joined by one Democrat, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Now the reconfirmation goes to the floor of the Senate. So, I think Bernanke's reconfirmation could be in some trouble when that Senate vote occurs. I'm going to bet that most, if not all, of the 40 Republicans are going to vote against Bernanke and that they are going to be joined by a number of Democrats."
...more (w/video)...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
I think it should be obvious to all and sundry by now that Ben Bernanke doesn’t work for us, he works for himself and his Wall Street cronies.
Or do I sound too unsophisticated and ignorant?
>> Or do I sound too unsophisticated and ignorant?
No, you sound too rational and observant.
Does Kudlow want a Chavez-marxist choosing the successor?
THINK!!!!!!!!
Kay Hutchinson voted against Ben today. When asked on CNBC who would be a better choice than Ben ... she danced around the subject saying what a good question. Did not answer the question other than to say Ben done a good job. :)
Ben works for the same guys Obomba works for....
Bernanke isn’t going anywhere.
Who would DumBO nominate instead? Madoff is in prision, but, I don’t think he is a commie.
Audit the Fed.
Kieth Olbermann.
I hate to say it, but maybe the socialist Bernie Sanders might be good for something this time (and only this one time) since he doesn't like Bernanke either.
Keep the serpent without a head for awhile and force Bambi to make a recess nomination.
The interests of American capitalism and of Americans are aligned, not opposed.
Son, what we got heah is what they call “crony capitalism”. Like Putin’s Russia, a game rigged for the insiders to profit at the expense of the peasants.
>> Does Kudlow want a Chavez-marxist choosing the successor? <<
So it would seem. Larry Summers has made absolutely no secret that he wants to be Fed chairman. So unless Barney Frank wants the job, Larry it will be!
I don't buy a single word of your rich-hating class war lies. You've merely been saturated in left-wing hate so long you can't even see it anymore...
Did not answer the question other than to say Ben done a good job. :)
******
Did the right thing for the wrong reasons.
Of course. That’s why he was appointed. And that’s why he’ll be re-appointed for a second term.
You are both wrong. What we have is a mess, not capitalism
Management and the Financial Crisis(We have met the enemy and he is us …)
William A. Sahlman
In studying the financial crisis as it unfolded over the past couple of years, it seems clear that many organizations suffered from a lethal combination of powerful, sometimes misguided incentives; inadequate control and risk management systems; misleading accounting; and, low quality human capital in terms of integrity and/or competence, all wrapped in a culture that failed to provide a sensible guide for managerial behavior.
Every aspect of the system needs change – from government accounting to corporate board roles and structure – and changes to any single element of the system will fail unless all elements are changed. The most important and most difficult changes are those required of corporate managers. Managers bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility for what transpired and therefore for what must change.
Sadly, there seem to be few new lessons from this crisis. What happened recently has happened before though perhaps not at the same scale. There were some unique contextual factors that created and sustained a larger and more pervasive than average financial bubble, but the underlying managerial failures were no different than in previous episodes of financial excess. Managers made dangerous and foolish decisions, consumers and investors engaged in risky behavior, and regulators were ineffective.
Senior managers are paid private market salaries and have substantial stock ownership. If large losses occur, the U.S. government is on the hook. If the companies do well, the executives make a mint. That amounts to privatizing reward and socializing risk, a classic example of heads I win, tails you lose.
http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/10-033.pdf
Paul Volcker: Think More Boldly
The Wall Street Journal
Every day I hear financial leaders saying that they are necessary and desirable, they are wonderful and they are God’s work. Has there been one financial leader to stand out and say that maybe this is excessive and that maybe we should get together privately to think about some restraint?
I hear about these wonderful innovations in the financial markets, and they sure as hell need a lot of innovation. I can tell you of two—credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations—which took us right to the brink of disaster. Were they wonderful innovations that we want to create more of?
You want boards of directors to be informed about all of these innovative new products and to understand them, but I do not know what boards of directors you are talking about. I have been on boards of directors, and the chance that they are going to understand these products that you are dishing out, or that you are going to want to explain it to them, quite frankly, is nil.
I mean: Wake up, gentlemen. I can only say that your response is inadequate. I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information. I am getting a bit wound up here.
...I didn’t know him, but I knew who he was and that he had won a Nobel Prize, and I nudged him and asked what all the financial engineering does for the economy and what it does for productivity.
Much to my surprise, he leaned over and whispered in my ear that it does nothing—and this was from a leader in the world of financial engineering. I asked him what it did do, and he said that it moves around the rents in the financial system—and besides, it’s a lot of intellectual fun.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704825504574586330960597134.html
This isn’t the half of it.
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