Paying The Price For The Chairman's Folly

     Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman and economic dolt, Ben Bernanke, surprised all the market experts who were expecting him to announce a tapering and subsequent end to his 85 billion dollar a month bond-buying spree with his made-out-of-thin-air money. But the Chairman announced he would continue his economic insanity at full force, and the market responded with a resounding round of buying, sending them to record highs, not based on financial fundamentals, but on the actions of an out-of-control Federal Reserve.
     The reaction of the market shows just how much it has decoupled itself from economic realities and how committed Ben Bernanke is to a failing strategy. The Chairman began the academic exercise of bond-buying with the stated goal of stimulating the economy. He said the plug would be pulled on the program when the economy improved enough to meet even his lowered expectations for it, i.e., 6.5 percent unemployment and consistent 3 percent growth in the Gross Domestic Product. The reality that after years of Fed "stimulus" which has resulted in trillions of vapor dollars making a circuitous route into the stock market, having had no effect on the economy at large, has not seemed to phase Chairman Bernanke in the least. He is stuck-on-stupid with support for an economic theory, which by his own metrics, has failed spectacularly.
     A recent Wall Street Journal article reported that ninety percent of the benefit from Mr. Bernanke's "stimulus" has been reaped by the top five percent of wealthiest people in this country. So not only has Ben and Barack's plan for increasing employment and wealth for the middle and lower classes failed to achieve that goal, but it has had the opposite effect of widening the gap between top income earners and the rest of us. In fact, there are now more people unemployed, according to the work force participation rate, by number and percentage, than there has been in the last 35 years. Some stimulus the Fed Chairman and the President have cooked up, it increases the wealth of the very people the administration says it is fighting against for the benefit of the "little guy."
     Ben Bernanke continuing quantitative easing at full force even though it is failing, is a sign that he and the administration are operating from fear and are ignorant of remedies that would be successful. It is a little like a child who is afraid of the dark, and instead of turning on the light, he buries his head under the covers where it is even darker and more fearful. The light in the case of Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama is allowing the free market and the economy to self-correct without the heavy hand of government. For it is this heavy hand that has kept the economy stagnant, and according to some measures, deteriorating. The only two options available to one who is evaluating Mr. Bernanke is that he is purposely imposing his deleterious economic policy on the nation or he is economically ignorant, either way the great people of this country are the ones ultimately paying the price for his folly.