Category: Central Banks
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Helicopter Ben Bernanke, Understanding the Chairman / Politics / Central Banks
When it comes to precious metals investing, there is no entity as important as the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve, which sets monetary policy and has a direct impact on the purchasing power of the greenback, has virtually complete control over inflation, deflation and the price of your metals. In the coming weeks, Ben Bernanke, the current Fed chairman, will be up for reappointment by the Senate of the United States.
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Monday, January 25, 2010
How To Trade Bernanke Re-appointment Decision Either way / Stock-Markets / Central Banks
Market commentator Peter Navarro presents the case for firing Ben Bernanke and evaluates different trading strategies depending on whether a Keynesian like Larry Summers or Alan Blinder replaces him versus a new "stable money" Fed chair like John Taylor, Martin Feldstein, or Paul Volcker.
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Saturday, January 23, 2010
Bernanke's Federal Reserve System Doom Loop / Economics / Central Banks
Two Bank of England economists have written one of the most perceptive and forthright papers in the history of central banking: "Banking on the State." Compared with any of the dozens of deadly dull, equation-filled, narrowly focused, recommendation-avoiding, career-enhancing, résumé-padding, utterly useless academic exercises published in the dozen regional Federal Reserve bank journals every month, this paper stands out like a diamond in an immense dung hill.
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Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Steve Keen on Banking Secrets and Fed Transparency / Politics / Central Banks
Last week I asked Australian economist Steve Keen what he thought about the St. Louis Fed article on the Social Cost of Transparency.
I was highly critical of the Fed's article and wrote about it in In Defense Of Secrecy; Three Prong Attack On The Fed; Selective Myopia . I asked Steve Keen to take a look. Here is a snip from my post, Keen's comments follow:
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Government and Central Bank Managing Money / Politics / Central Banks
Thanks to the Federal Reserve and our government for their chase for a strong dollar policy, middle income workers are now forced to become money mangers. A strong dollar cannot come from government or the Feds, only from the private sector; although elected officials have unlimited power to destroy it. It used to be that you can work, get paid, then allocate your money to a bank and let it sit without worrying. But now, in addition to a career, we work harder preserving wealth than creating it. Since the inception of the Federal Reserve the dollar has lost in 97 years over 95% of its value. It is reasonably certain the next 95% won’t take as long, and is more likely to occur in our life time.
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Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Federal Reserve / Politics / Central Banks
Honest Money – Chapter 10
"Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with a flick of
a pen they will create enough to buy it back." [1]
Friday, January 15, 2010
While Fed Dilly Dallies, China and Other Central Bankers Taking the Lead / Politics / Central Banks
I talked in last week’s column about how our Federal Reserve won’t raise interest rates until the cows come home. But you can’t say the same thing about many central banks overseas …
The men and women in charge there aren’t sitting idly by while new bubbles inflate. They’re not whistling past the graveyard while asset prices balloon ever higher. They’re actually starting to normalize policy — and since those moves have investment implications for you, you need to be aware of them.
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Friday, January 15, 2010
Greenspan and Bernanke Groveling at the Fed / Politics / Central Banks
Frederick Sheehan writes: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke gave a speech on January 3, 2010 that was incomprehensible. The address itself will be discussed later. It is important first to consider the precedent of Federal Reserve chairmen making absurd claims - and getting away with it.
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Fed Publishing Mathematical Gibberish to Hide Balance Sheet Secrets / Politics / Central Banks
The Fed is pulling out all stops to defend its secrets, including publishing self-serving mathematical gibberish. Please consider the St. Louis Fed article on the Social Cost of Transparency.
Unless you are an academic wonk, you will be stymied by pages that look like this ...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Fed Seeks Control Not Profits To Protect the Banking Cartel / Politics / Central Banks
This report is from Fortune. It says that the Federal Reserve System made $51 billion in 2009, and it returned over $46 billion to the government.
If you are a regular reader of my reports, you are well aware of this. I write articles on this at least once a year. Why? Because so few critics of the FED understand this. I keep getting questions on the forums about how the FED works.
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Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Why the Fed Likes Independence / Politics / Central Banks
Last week it was revealed that when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve, he urged AIG officials not to disclose to the Securities Exchange Commission relevant details of agreements with banks to bail out Goldman Sachs. Apparently he felt at the time that regulators and the public would be angry that taxpayer money was used to fully compensate bankers who made some horrifically bad investment decisions. These banks should have suffered the consequences of the huge risks they were taking. After all, they kept plenty of rewards when times were good. Instead, the Fed found a way to socialize these major losses so these banks could survive and continue making more bad decisions, at the expense of the American people and the value of the dollar.
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Thursday, January 07, 2010
Bernanke's Hubris, Inability to Admit Mistakes, and Blaming Everyone For His Mistakes / Politics / Central Banks
Bernanke's hubris, inability to admit mistakes, and his blaming everyone but himself for his mistakes is increasingly starting to touch on nerves.
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Bernanke Man of the Year, Are We Missing Something? / Politics / Central Banks
Olivier Garret writes: Ben Bernanke is a dubious choice to be named “Person of the Year” by Time magazine. While Time’s Managing Editor Richard Stengel credits him with recognizing early and reacting appropriately to the ongoing financial crisis, in reality, he was wrong time and again with both his predictions and his remedies. Just remember these gems:
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Monday, December 21, 2009
The Fed, A Weapon of Monetary Destruction / Economics / Central Banks
In an extended propagandistic interview in Time magazine, Ben Bernanke is finally asked the crucial question:
Read full article... Read full article...Q: So, I'm a fringe economics type, I'm not personally, but I'm saying a reader picks up TIME Magazine, and they see this and they go, oh, my God, Ben Bernanke, low interest rates caused this whole thing. He's just an extension of that devil man, Alan Greenspan. Low interest rates, this is the whole cause. What's your bullet answer to that?
A: It's hard to give a bullet answer.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Audit The Fed, Then Abolish It / Politics / Central Banks
Pawns For The Fed: George Will, Robert J. Samuelson, Bonddad, Time, Others
The Fed is fighting tooth and nail Ron Paul's Audit The Fed proposal. Along the way it has picked up backers in some surprising places.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Times, Bernanke Joins a Long List of Infamous Underachievers / Politics / Central Banks
Martin Hutchinson writes: There's a culture in our society that rewards bad behavior. Take the Fort Collins, Colo. couple that pretended to send their 6-year-old boy up in a homemade balloon so the family could star in a reality show?
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Thursday, December 17, 2009
Time Magazine's Kiss of Death to You! / Politics / Central Banks
Bernanke is probably pleased to be name Time Magazine Person of the Year 2009.
The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. How the mild-mannered man who runs the Federal Reserve prevented an economic catastrophe.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Don't Blame the Federal Reserve for Prescience of Financial Crisis / Politics / Central Banks
Long ago I quit criticizing the Federal Reserve chairman for failing to avert the latest systemic financial disaster, though I still pity him for enduring the endless Socratic essays, polemics, and indignant soliloquies of his detractors. Criticizing the Fed chairman for a lack of prescience is like criticizing a dog for an inability to recite the alphabet. When something is physiologically impossible, why bother?
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Monday, December 14, 2009
Fed's Monopoly Money / Politics / Central Banks
Last week, in the name of protecting the little guy from Wall Street, the House passed HR 4173 to increase the little guy's false sense of security in the financial system. This mammoth piece of legislation would massively increase government regulation and oversight in the banking industry under the misguided reasoning that more government could have stopped faulty lending practices, when in actuality it caused them. This bill would also greatly increase the powers of the Federal Reserve, which too many in Congress still see as savior rather than perpetrator in this mess.
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Wednesday, December 09, 2009
End the Fed? Or End the Market Economy? / Politics / Central Banks
When Republican Congressman Ron Paul recently introduced legislation to audit the Federal Reserve, diverse sections of the political spectrum applauded. And rightfully so. The Fed’s role in the still-developing bank bailouts is one of utter secrecy; the total cost of which — as estimated by the bailout’s Special Inspector General, Neil Barofsky — could cost taxpayers $23.7 trillion. The fact that legislation needed to be introduced to raise the question of the whereabouts of these funds points to a larger breakdown in U.S. democracy.
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