Posted on 10/12/2011 6:32:39 PM PDT by Kaslin
Politics: You'd think a Republican debate on the economy would be a perfect time to blast Obama policies as an unmitigated disaster. Yet Obama escaped largely unscathed. Whom do these folks think they're running against?
If aliens landed Tuesday night and managed to find the GOP debate on Bloomberg TV, they might think the GOP candidates were running against Ben Bernanke, someone named Dodd-Frank, Obama-Care and China.
Newt Gingrich focused his ire, for example, on Bernanke, saying he's "the first person to fire." Michele Bachmann went on about Dodd-Frank, calling it "the jobs and housing destruction act." Rick Santorum said he wants to "go to war with China."
And of course, everyone pledged to ax ObamaCare.
OK, fine. But what about Obama? You know, the guy they want to defeat in November 2012? When his name came up at all, he mainly got polite jabs.
At one point Mitt Romney said of Obama that "you have a president who I think is well-meaning but just over his head when it comes to the economy." In over his head? That's Obama's problem? So all he needs are better advisers and more experience?
Gingrich seemed to think the president's big problem is lack of leadership skills. "Congress couldn't figure out how to get the debt ceiling done with a president who shows zero leadership," he said, "so they adopt a truly stupid bill."
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Repealing Obamacare is going after Obama...It is Obama’s centerpiece legislation.
"Someone" called Dodd-Frank
What pure, unadulterated bullsh!t.
Ah, their both out to destroy.
The current crop of underachievers running for the Republican nomination is all over the board with no focus on specific issues. They allow the liberal moderators in the debates to frame the questions and issues. Reagan campaigned on two simple issues: right the economy and defeat communism. He didn’t allow them to sidetrack him and get off message. The candidate who follows that simple formula will come away with the nomination.
Bernanke learned from easy Al who should dug us into the original hole. His current stupidity of trying to stimulate the economy through low interest rates is just another way to enable borrow and spend politicians (of both parties).
Writer is a dunce, you have the primaries, then you have the election. This is the same hair brain crap, as the perry crowd posted yesterday about Cain was not attacking williard, BS, who is number 1 today. Polls show a dried turd with an R beside its name could beat obummer, and no one is attacking obummer. Just damn.
Cheney praised Bernanke in his book
you must remember that this is a financial paper, they earn their living off the very scum who steal and loot your life savings everyday through their corruption,fraud, and deceit. They do some good articles occasionally though, until they start seeing blood in the water with regards to their supreme financial rulers.
Good editorial.
I too am AGHAST at how LITTLE the candidates are doing to really take it to Obama and explain what he has been doing wrong and how to fix it.
That is true and something I did NOT take into consideration. :(
Scumbags anyway.
Silly article.
Wow! IBD just lost a lot of credibility in my eyes.
Bashing and promising to repeal Dodd-Frank / FinReg, Sarbanes-Oxley, ObamaCare and a bunch of other laws, regulations and taxes that do nothing but stifle and choke the U.S. economy is the right thing to do.
Same applies explaining the pernicious role of Government in the housing and mortgage fiasco through Community Reinvestment Act / CRA, Fannie and Freddie / FHA, HUD and intimidation through enforcement by DOJ, as well as pointing out the role of newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, guided by infamous Elizabeth Warren, who is currently running for Scott Brown Senate seat in MA.
So far only Gingrich even touched on these issues, but they should leave bashing Bernanke and the Fed to Ron Paul who has made his political career and millions of dollars on this issue, laying the blame for all the troubles on the Fed.
Whatever they [incorrectly] think Bernanke and the Fed have done wrong, calling the Fed / Bernanke's actions "treasonous" and threatening putting him in jail should instantly disqualify a contender from being considered a serious candidate for President.]
Newt should know better, so him saying that Bernanke "has done a terrible job" and "should be the first to fire" is probably just pandering for the votes of Ron Paul and Rick Perry supporters.
It also, apparently, tries to pander to some in the Tea Party who, for some reason, made the Fed / Bernanke and the banking / financial industry their whipping boys, without slightest understanding what the role of the Fed is and what the tools the Fed has and doesn't have and how it does what it does - in the last couple of years, some rhetoric of many here on FR and from some hosts on the radio or TV was indistinguishable from current OWS crowd - simply frustrations without ability to either explain or listen to the facts or come up with "better" "solutions" to perceived "problems". Ask them in what way the Fed / Bernanke "failed" and what they would consider a "success" of the Fed's monetary policy and you find that they are at the same loss for explanations and/or "solutions" as the OWS people you hear or read on the news. They have no metrics of "failure" or "success" or even understanding of what they could realistically expect from someone else, just frustration with the circumstances that they want to blame someone on, even if the blame is grossly misplaced.
Bernanke didn't create the problems or policies in the mortgage financing industry, bashing him only takes the eyes off the ball of true culprits in Congress and many administrations / Presidents who through their policies over decades created government-run industry which socialized liabilities but privatized profits for their own people (Jim Johnson, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick etc.) and slush funds.
While Pelosi, Reid and Obama minted $Trillions in deficits and debt for various infrastructure-to-nowhere and Cash-for-clunkers-and-other-nonsense "porkulus" programs, Bernanke has recently returned $79B to the Treasury (and the total of about $102B total in 2010, part of it from interest on the bonds and the money made on TARP and TALF) - Warren Buffett would be proud of that debt-reduction plan, without any extra "M&B" taxes.
So not only it doesn't make sense to bash the Fed for the problems it didn't create in the first place, nor has any ability to solve (problems are mainly fiscal - uncontrolled runaway spending by Congress and the Executive brunches of government - just like in Greece, Portugal and other PIIGS who have common currency but don't have their own Central Bank with "printing press", outside of ECB), it also doesn't make political sense.
If conservative bash the Fed / Bernanke, and blame TARP for the problems with mortgage and employment situation, it only plays to the tune of Obama and liberals. If TARP was "bad" (because it was so declared almost immediately by some conservative radio hosts) and Bernanke is "doing a terrible job" and "should be the first to be fired" - then the logical conclusion that can follow is that the only thing that held this economy together for a while could only be the heroic "stimulus" efforts and wonderful economic policies of Obama administration to "save, create and support" the jobs that people still have... despite Republicans (Bush-Paulson-Bernanke) imposing TARP and the Fed doing a "terrible job". And of course, the economy is back on the brink because the Fed is still doing a "terrible job" and Republicans won't allow any more "stimulus" that "saved and supported" those remaining jobs.
Basically, this Fed-bashing / Bernanke-bashing makes no sense on both economic and political grounds, and conservatives should stop it and move on to the real enemies and High Value Targets, and Democrats currently present much better economic / financial / political target-rich environment than any viscerally minute "blame" you can put at the feat of the Fed or Bernanke.
Bernanke himself made it very easy for politicians to concentrate on the relevant issues - he recently announced that the Fed is on hold as far the changing interest rates until mid-2013 - well after the elections and giving next administration time to develop and coordinate fiscal policies with monetary policies.
With this announcement, Bernanke brilliantly killed two birds with one stone:
1. It was intended to remove him (hopefully, but so far unsuccessfully, it appears) from the political scene during elections' "silly season" and from political pressure to "do something" before elections
2. It also removes the uncertainty for businesses who now have the luxury of time to decide when/if they will need to borrow or restructure / refinance the debt, at near-guaranteed low rates.
This may be useful for GOP candidates (except Ron Paul): Bashing Bernanke - CT, by Steve Chapman, 2011 October 15
They should consider that Bernanke-bashing based on pandering is not going to get them votes from Perry or Paul in the primaries, but will make it difficult to backtrack from in the general and will put off many serious people who understand that Bernanke is not the enemy and has been neither "treasonous" or "disastrous".
Bernanke has been one of the most transparent and accessible Fed Chairmen. Maybe asking for the audience and scheduling an hour or two of face-to-face meeting with Bernanke could do a lot of good for a serious candidate to a high political office.
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