There have been several diaries popping up here on the Big Orange making the case that we need to get rid of Ben Bernanke as Fed Chair. There are diaries attacking the logic that Bernanke's ouster will lead to Wall Street catastrophe. There are diaries making a big stink about the cozy relationships between banks and Tim Geithner, banks and Ben Bernanke, etc. People are pissed off that Bernanke, a Bush-nominated holdover, is being nominated for another term.
I'm not going to get into that. In fact, I think it's a huge distraction from the real issue.
It doesn't matter who's sitting in the chair's seat if the whole system is rigged. And right now, the whole system is rigged to privatize the profits and socialize the risk. That must change. Not next year. Not in 2012. It must change NOW.
And that, my friends, is the real work of Congress.
I have very little else to say on the topic. But let me make the logic perfectly clear to you:
Elections happen. Political winds blow from time to time, and things change. Federal Reserve Chairs come and go.
But the regulatory framework upon which our system is based is much more fundamental to the general welfare of our nation. If 2008 didn't illustrate the need for real, fundamental, systemic reform to our nation's banking system, then I don't know what will. The irresponsible risks taken by those entrusted with protecting our assets is beyond comprehension, both in its scope and in the opaque nature of the swaps, derivatives, and mortgage-backed securities that made this mess what it is.
Somehow, we've managed to take the bait and focus more on a scapegoat (Bernanke, Geithner, Summers, Obama) than focusing on the real, systemic failures that need to be addressed by well-designed legislation that reins in the corporate greed and excessive risk-taking that has come to typify our nation's banking system. We need to make the banks small enough that no bank is too big to fail. We need to stop looking for sacrificial lambs and start looking for solutions.
And we don't have any time to waste.