Illiteracy in High Places
If a person lives long enough, he can watch everyone forget everything they learned.
Everyone includes Federal Reserve chairmen, economists, Bank of America "strategists" and even Bloomberg.com.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke thinks he can hold down U.S. long-term interest rates by purchasing mortgage bonds and U.S. Treasuries. Sixty years ago, the Federal Reserve understood that this was an impossible feat. After an acrimonious public dispute with the U.S. Treasury, in 1951 the Federal Reserve forced an "Accord" on the government that eliminated the Fed's obligation to monetize Treasury debt in order to hold down long-term interest rates.
President Truman and Treasury Secretary John Snyder wanted to protect World War II bond purchasers by preventing any rise in interest rates, which would mean a decline in the price of the bonds.
The Fed understood that monetizing the debt to hold down interest rates meant loss of control over the money supply. The policy of suppressing interest rates could only work until the financial markets anticipated rising inflation and bid down the bond prices. If the Fed responded by buying more Treasuries, the money supply and inflation would rise faster.
Since Bernanke announced his plan to purchase $1 trillion in mortgage and Treasury bonds in order to help the housing market with low interest rates, interest rates have risen. When will the Fed remember that printing money does not lower long-term interest rates?
According to Bloomberg on June 3, Bank of America strategists are recommending that investors buy Fannie Mae bonds because the rise in interest rates means the Fed will ramp up its purchases in order to prevent rising interest rates from adversely impacting the struggling housing market. When will financial gurus remember that printing money does not lower interest rates?
Treasury Secretary Geithner is another economic incompetent. He told China that he stood for a "strong dollar," but that China should let its currency appreciate relative to the dollar, which, of course, would mean a weaker dollar. He simultaneously told China that their investments in U.S. Treasury bonds were safe.
His Chinese university audience, being economically literate, laughed at Geithner. It apparently did not dawn on the U.S. treasury secretary that if Chinese money is rising in value relative to the U.S. dollar, the value of Chinese investments in dollar-denominated U.S. Treasury bonds is falling.
Congressional Democrats are proving themselves to be as stupid as the Republicans. According to The Associated Press, the Democrats have reached agreement to appropriate another $100 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the year. What are the Democrats thinking? The federal budget for this year is already 50 percent in the red. Why add another $100 billion to the red ink, which has to be monetized, thus causing inflation, higher interest rates and a weaker dollar.
The red ink that Washington is generating is a far greater threat to Americans than any foreign "enemies."
The hubris is extraordinary. A bankrupt government that has to send its treasury secretary begging to China thinks it can spend limitless amounts in a futile effort to control the culture, mores and political system of distant Afghanistan.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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"His Chinese university audience, being economically literate, laughed at Geithner."
And that was the real Geithner, not the one so hilariously lampooned on a recent Saturday Night Live skit. Now that I think of it, apart from their looks, the real Geithner and the faux Geithner are virtually indistinguishable as to their content. No wonder the Chinese laughed.
Illiteracy, my butt. This is DELIBERATE.
It's so frustrating listening to conservatives play pretend games and debate false paradigms put forth by the left. Why do we keep debating the need for sanity with insane people? Meanwhile they just keep running the asylum.
Okay. say it again, for the one billionth time...
The left is TRYING to destroy the American economy.
The left is TRYING to destroy American sovereignity.
The left is TRYING to destroy American power and wealth.
The left is TRYING to provoke a crisis that will favor the advancement of their agenda; the complete government takeover of the economy.
The left ISN'T trying to create jobs with the stimulus package.
The left ISN'T trying to take the country into the new century of technology and prosperity. They WANT to get rid of manufacturing, cars, electricity, oil and all signs of Judeo Christian civilization and European dominance in the world.
And, since you are going to fall into this logic trap also in the near future. Don't bother trying to debate with the left about why they shouldn't bailout the broadcast and newspaper industry. Why?
The left ISN'T TRYING to "bailout" the newspaper industry and the radio industry. They are TRYING to TAKE CONTROL of it.
SOCIALISM. It's about SOCIALISM.
thank you Jonathan. This is a huge issue with otherwise insightful PCR writings. You cannot pretend to be an impartial observer, because then you are in fact supporting the Obama folly by not criticizing him directly and pretending these are some techical mistakes while the overall goals are still for the greater good. In other words Obama cancels Cheney and that is good so we should support Obama even if we pretend not to.
@3: I would ever so gently encourage this poster to chill. And to consider three concepts.
1) Even highly-placed individuals and groups characterized as conspirators usually aren't that competent at plotting, let alone sufficiently focused to execute what they allegedly aspire to accomplish.
2) Even highly-placed individuals put their trousers on one leg at a time.
3) ALL CAPS add nothing to the potency of the ideas they articulate.
Oh there is nothing to worry about @4, is there?. As for the rest, does anyone understand a word that you are saying (pants, legs, conspiracies}? You think we are just supposed to be crochety intellectual malcontent paleos, amusing, yet so harmless for liberal brownshirts! As long as we "chill" in order not to offend our great leader Obama. Not so fast Mark from ACORN. (notice: I have used CAPS!!!)
@Jack,
So, Mark is from ACORN ey?
I don't believe the politicians and bureaucratic officials necessarily need to be conspirators. They could be more like useful idiots. After all, the subversive process takes on a momentum of its own after years of growth. I think the real conspirators are the central bankers, who control the currency of nations, and who answer to no one. The powerful shadow government that FDR mentioned, that the founding fathers warned us against.
All caps to me are just another device like commas and underlining. They only become annoying when the entire message is done in caps lock. It makes for difficult reading.
@6 "They could be more like useful idiots."
See my post @1. Either Geithner is a useful idiot AND (oops, all caps) a central banker, or else he's smart beyond Mensa and his public displays of idiocy have us all fooled. My (fiat) money is on the first proposition.
That said, even a "conspiracy" exclusively of central bankers will undergo dysfunction and disorganization due to internal differences and external factors beyond even the mighty conspirators' control. Bankers or not, they're all human beings who live in the fallen human condition.
@5 "Nothing to worry about"? I never said that. As for my being from ACORN, I've never heard anything so squirrelly.
@7
Geithner isn't smart beyond Mensa, Mark... See the reality here. He's talking to a public who is gullible beyond gullible. In any group of idiots, the smartest idiots will always lead the others over the cliff. Geithner's public displays are generated by his efforts to explain the unexplainable, and to sell the unsellable. He appears to be an idiot simply because he is telling outrageous lies. The point is though, that he is being believed. And so was Bush's treasury secretary in October 2008. Remember his big announcement - looking like a deer in the headlights?
So, the Chinese are laughing at Geithner. But they have continued to fund our debt long past the point of sanity. Who are idiots really? Yes, they are beginning to balk, but the progressives don't care. They WANT TO DESTROY THE ECONOMY so that they can remake the country in their progressive image. The United States as you know it will cease to exist very soon, and be submerged into a North American Union, and ultimately something larger.
As a Christian, I absolutely believe that much of this "conspiracy" is being driven by a force that supercedes human. But it is also propelled by the fallen human condition; by ruthless and greedy men in power who are pushing for a global world government.
Ultimately, I believe that the world is now ruled by two primary cabals of "globalists", who are currently in an alliance of convenience, but who will ultimately may come into conflict with one another when they have conquered their common enemy, capitalism and the West.
Namely, leftist progressives on one hand, and Islamofascists on the other. They are allied against the Western Judeo Christian order that has been the dominant model for several hundred years, which began to decline at the end of the Church age with the rise of humanism. There is clearly an affinity between the progressive and the Muslim. Just as there was between Marxists and Muslims during the Cold War, and between Nazis and Muslims in the first half of the 20th century. But they are marriages of convenience.
But once the West is defeated, then what? What does each cabal do with the other? Or do they plan to coexist somehow? I doubt the latter to be true. More likely, each is planning to destroy the other in what I believe will result in World War Four and global nuclear war.
Add to the mix, another great rising power center, Asia, led by China, hungry not for global dominance perhaps, but for global energy sources. Who knows.
The future looks bleak. I think the best you can hope for is that the United States will become so weak and insignificant that noone will bother with her any further. We will be left to languish in our post-industrial backwardness, perhaps fighting amongst ourselves but ignored by the emerging future.
@8 Jonathan, when you threw that tiresome neocon fantasy term "Islamofascist" onto the discussion table, I was worried momentarily that we had all fallen down a rabbit hole into the Hannity website.
"I think the best you can hope for is that the United States will become so weak and insignificant that noone (sic) will bother with her any further."
However, I commend you for a closing statement worthy of this site.
Granted, Islamofascist is a faddish term, but we know what the term means. I'm not sure what neocon means, but I think it is faddish, as well. At any rate, I'd rather coin a new term for conservatives who prefer to fight a retreating rear guard action against an uninterrupted onslaught of philosophical savagery.
I am asking "Jonathan" either to moderate his language. Nothing is to be gained, either from writing in majuscule or raising one's voice. Tomorrow I am going to nominate St. Basil the Great as the patron saint of the blogosphere, because his admonitions on how to conduct a conversation will be made the law of this website.
@11 "...his admonitions on how to conduct a conversation..."
I, for one, would most welcome a piece by TJF that explicates St. Basil the Great's admonitions. I hope such will accompany tomorrow's nomination.
"would most welcome a piece by TJF that explicates St. Basil the Great’s admonitions."
Me too because I am sure I have violated it in the past or will in the future if TJF doesn't lay it out. I saw recently on Taki Mag that the half-cocked editor headlined a thoughtful article by a rather thoughtful and civilized woman with the boorisness of the F Bomb. Normally one would go to a bowling alley, a whore house or on Marine patrol for such elemental color but alas we now include it under the cover of audacity in introducing thoughtful commentary. We have been confusing means and ends for long enough, I wish TJF would help with the cloudy, blogging, smog with the clearer skys and fresher air of St. Basil, who was called great in age when not everything and everybody was.
It's curious that the three greatest periods of inflation in U.S. history all occurred mainly under Republican presidents: the Civil War and Lincoln's greenbacks, the 1970s (Carter only continued what Richard "We're All Keynesians Now" Nixon and Ford started), and the 2000s under Bush, with Obama, is in most other things, only continuing Bush's policies.
Those who forget the 1970s are condemned to repeat them.
The left is not trying to destroy the American economy and American power and wealth. They control the American economy; America's power and wealth are the basis of their power and wealth in the world. They may indeed destroy the American economy and American wealth and power through hubris, greed, ideological blindness, miscalculation or incompetence, but not because that is their intention.
I disagree with you Kirt that the left is not doing this intentionally. They are. They hate the consumerism, the materialism and what they see as the imperialism of the United States. They see that the US and the culture it has created is exploitative of the poor and despoiling the planet in every sense of the word.
The left sees the lone superpower status of the US as a threat to world peace. We "intimidate" everyone else. So, the answer is to take us down a notch.
The left dumbs everything down Kirt. Always to the lowest common denominator. Things will be right when we sink to the level of Cuba, and then pull both of us up a notch or two equally.
And they plan to make the US and Europe the seed for a world government which will impose this worldview on the globe eventually. Corporate fascism in the guise of democracy.
When Al Gore says that the internal combustion engine is the greatest threat to humanity, he encapsulates this viewpoint in that one sentence. So, if getting rid of God, private land ownership, parental rights and the choice to eat meat isn't the destruction of America, I don't know what is.
Oh, certainly they are full of hubris and greed. But then again, they don't apply to themselves the rules they intend for everyone else. They will still have private planes. But you won't.
@#3 "In other words Obama cancels Cheney and that is good so we should support Obama even if we pretend not to."
I'm sorry but you lost me there. I have trouble seeing Obama "cancelling" Cheney. Obama is like another Cheney to me. I can't support Obama in anything he announces an intention to do, unless he announces that he is resigning as president and checking into a drug rehab facility or an asylum.
#16 - Speaking just for myself, I hate the consumerism, materialism, and imperialism of the US. I guess that makes me of the "left". I'd like to see the US taken down several notches from its world dominating position. That's because the US is not just the seed for world government, but already is the government of most of the world with more than 750 military bases in more than 100 countries. Americans should repudiate materialism and consumerism and be content with their own country rather than trying to dominate others or ruin those who don't wish to be dominated. It is consumerism, materialism and the will to dominate which get rid of God in the hearts of human beings. We need to turn to Him and away from greed to acquire things and power over others. And I'll do very nicely, thank you, without that private plane. I've never owned one and won't even miss it.
"The red ink that Washington is generating is a far greater threat to Americans than any foreign “enemies.”
True words Dr. Roberts.