Keeping an eye on Bernanke
I have to admit, I’m not the most informed guy when it comes to the Federal Reserve. Slogging through that Wikipedia article could take the better part of a Saturday (what with clicking around to find explanations for unfamiliar terms and phrases). For the quick, quick version, we turn to Gary North:
The Federal Reserve System, a private corporation with a President-appointed Board of Governors, is the classic monopoly in action: “for the good of the people,” of course. It controls the money supply, which in turn influences everything else in the economy.
This makes Professor Ben Bernanke of Princeton America’s monopolist numero-uno.
It appears Mr. Bernanke isn’t too popular. This is especially so of Columbia Business School students. Their dean, Glenn Hubbard is the former Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, and was on the shortlist for Alan Greenspan’s job. Some of his students decided to take a stab at Mr. Bernanke, producing a satirical video to the tune of “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. Love the Police. Hate — HATE — the song, though I do enjoy it in parody form. Watch it after the jump.
Mr. North points us to two places where we can keep an eye on The Fed: Charts and Policy. In the meantime, I’m gonna go get myself edumacated on the Federal Reserve System.
2 Responses to “Keeping an eye on Bernanke”
There are two schools of Bernake: the Greenspan purists and most everyone else. The Greenspan purists are unhappy with him because he seems more interventionist than his predecessor. A lot of people strongly believe that Greenspan’s relative hands-off, inflation-hawk policy during the 90s accounted for much of our financial growth. Everyone else blames Greenspan for the bubbles that we encountered during the late part of his time at the federal reserve.
I have to say that I was impressed with Bernake’s handling of Bear Sterns. He managed to bail the company out without creating a moral hazard. The assets of the company were safe while the bank itself became almost worthless. I think that we’ll look back favorably on him relatively quickly.
Comment made on May 16th, 2008 at 2:05 pmI actually agree on the bailout. My position has slightly shifted since it was first announced. At first I was mostly angry that we would do for a large company what we won’t do for our most troubled citizens. Still, if no more banks collapse and we avoid a wholesale great depression, he will have done the right thing.
Comment made on May 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pmThat said, he’s allowing a massive oil bubble to develop which will eventually burst and cause future problems.
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