Did Bernanke Prevent Another Great Depression?

TMO ^ | 4-22-2012 | Frank Shostak

[BenLurkin]

We would never have been at risk for one had Hussein not made a series of bizarre comments between the election and his inaguration.

[Chgogal]

Which comments in particular? TY in advance. : )

[JLS]

This economist thinks Bernanke may well have. Bernanke certainly followed the advice of Milton Friedman concerning what the FED should have been doing 1930-33.

[BenLurkin]

Here’s a sample: http://www.mlive.com/businessreview/annarbor/index.ssf/2009/02/we_should_not_and_will_not_pro.html

Have fun searching for more; they’re out there.

[goseminoles]

Im not an economist, but am an MBA student. I pretty much agree with this article. You don’t lend money to broke people and expect it to end well..

[Zakeet]

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved. – Ludwig Von Mises

Question: If you were advising the Federal Reserve, what would you say are the unsolved economic problems of the day?
Milton Friedman: The one unsolved economic problem of the day is how to get rid of the Federal Reserve. – January 1996 interview on NPR

That stupid ass Bernanke didn't prevent a thing. He merely postponed the inevitable by increasing the problem, and in so doing made the outcome much worse.

[JLS]

I did not read the article but the conclusion. When did Bernanke lend money to broke people?

[goseminoles]

Bernake didn’t. Lenders did.

[Drill Thrawl]

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion.

Agree.

That stupid ass Bernanke didn't prevent a thing. He merely postponed the inevitable by increasing the problem, and in so doing made the outcome much worse. Agree big time!

He merely kicked the can down the road. We will soon see first hand what an economic collapse and a civil war (think France not America) look like.

[pepsionice]

What triggered the 1929 mess and the 2008 mess are two entirely different issues.

I would agree that when you allowed people to walk in and get home loans...with only $1k down, and regular people were paying $1500 a month on their mortgage...it was wrong. I would agree that when you bought a house at $200k and five years later, it was valued at $280k...it was wrong. I would agree that bundling these mortgages into investment packages and selling them to mutual funds and foreign banks....was totally wrong.

There are an awful lot of experts (even from Harvard) who kept us on this trail for a good fifteen years...going continually toward the mess. No senator or congressman ever challenged any of this stupidity in doing common banking business or mortgages.

[momincombatboots]

O please! He saved us from the staged crisis... Gee thanks. There is no way the september 07 bank run just happened. They created a crisis and call themselves savior... Sickening.

[Zakeet]

This economist thinks Bernanke may well have. Bernanke certainly followed the advice of Milton Friedman concerning what the FED should have been doing 1930-33 ...

... and that is exactly why this country is in such bad shape economically! Bernanke was fighting the wrong war!

[Our current economic problems] are not due to a lack of money available to lend, but to a lack of faith in the ability of borrowers to repay their debts. The Fed has gone about as if the problem is a shortage of liquidity. That is not the basic problem. The basic problem for the markets is [uncertainty] that balance sheets are credible. -- Anna Schwartz, Our central bankers and our Treasury Department are getting it wrong again, The Wall Street Journal October 18, 2008

Note: Anna Schwartz co-authored, with Milton Friedman, A Monetary History of the United States (1963), the definitive account of how misguided monetary policy turned the stock-market crash of 1929 into the Great Depression.

[JLS]

Right, so what is Bernanke to do? The charge of the FED is to maintain a stable price level. How has done on that? From 1930 to 1933, the price level declined by about 25%. From 2008 to 2012 the price level has risen about 6%.

Providing a stable price framework for the operation of the economy is what the FED can do. Anything else is the FED trying to do more than they are capable of and that is destabilizing.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I agree with everything you said. This whole “crisis” was created by the ‘RATS to get somebody named Obama in the White House. JMO.

[FedsRStealingOurCountryFromUs]

[Graewoulf]

Add this (by yours, truly) to your list:

Are you TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY,
Or still have your last dime?
Do you need to keep on giving
Until you are poor, weak and blind?

Do you feel good as the parasites
Destroy what you have built?
Does it warm your heart to witness
That the poor refuse to work?

Ah, the joy of working to go in debt
To DC’s Company Store,
And with each election the politicians say,
“We must tax you until YOU are also poor.”

[goseminoles]

Lol!!!

[FedsRStealingOurCountryFromUs]

People who call you paranoid for saying that are delusional. You're right. I've seen MANY instances of Alinksy tactics; In order to implement something the American people don't like, the socialists first CREATE THE EXCUSE to enable them to IMPLEMENT THE CHANGE. Fast & Furious is an ideal example. The first major example was the Democrat-fueled faltering economy (THE EXCUSE) to rally Americans towards Obama (IMPLEMENT THE CHANGE).

I also believe the BP oil spill was sabotaged to CREATE THE EXCUSE to rally the American people 'against oil' so as to enable the socialists to steer America away from 'capitalist-driven' oil (IMPLEMENT THE CHANGE). The socialist's intent here was to crush free-market, capitalist oil and replace it with government run 'green programs'. This is a major sector of our economy stolen from Americans and placed into the hands of the globalists.

The THEFT of just two industries; The health care industry and conventional oil industry from the private sector represent a major victory of the socialist movement in the United States.

Watch out for events created solely for the purpose of generating the EXCUSE the government needs to IMPLEMENT THE CHANGE.

[plain talk]

I also believe the BP oil spill was sabotaged to CREATE THE EXCUSE to rally the American people 'against oil'

I don't believe such nonsense.