David Stockman, who was Ronald Reagan's Director of Office of Management and Budget from 1981 to 1981, says what honest people already know: Ben Bernanke and today's Federal Reserve are hostage to Wall Street.
We have a FED that is entirely hostage to Wall Street. They're petrified that the boys and girls on Wall Street may have a hissy fit if they don't continue to inject new easy money, via QE2.
In light of the fact that Ronald Reagan's Director of OMB is saying this, perhaps it is not the worst thing IF Barack Obama were a Moderate Republican from this era. Perhaps we would have someone like Paul Volcker as head of the Federal Reserve, who David Stockman called a 'real' Chairman.
Paul Volcker was a real fed chairman who realized his job was to
preserve the value and stability of the dollar, not to become Wall St’s best friend.
In 1981, Wall Street had 'white knuckles' about what Volcker might do, which was to enact policy that would stabilize the dollar, not drive up the indeces and support speculators.
He strongly criticizes the infusion of free money via QE2, saying it is supporting Wall Street over Main Street:
As a result we have a fed that’s bordering on lunacy in terms of the policiy that it’s implementing. It’s doing nothing for Main Street, just creating another massive speculative boom on Wall Street, that is artificially transferring massive wealth and profit to a very small amount of people, all on leverage. The Fed is saying basically if you want to speculate here’s free money have at it.
Yet the Chamber of Commerce, CEO's, and businesses, can't stop whining about how 'anit-business' Obama is.
http://www.cnbc.com/...
http://www.reuters.com/...
So, Obama has to appoint Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of no-tax-paying GE as his Chief of The Presiden'ts Council on Jobs and Comptetiveness. Yes, very anti-business.
http://content.usatoday.com/...
http://www.fultoncountynews.com/...
Better he should investigate his own monetary policy, since he is aiding and abetting the speculation. Perhaps he thinks this will shake itself out by November 2012, and not be an issue by then?
Stockman also blames Wall Street speculators, assisted by free money from the Fed, as responsible for the sharp rise in energy and food prices. So, President Obama's monetary policy is leading to $4.00 a gallon at the pump, yet he claims he will start a 'task force', to investigate any 'illegal' speculation. When asked what he would ask of Bernanke at yesterday's historic press conference:
How is it that the massive expansion of free overnight money and bank reserves that was instigated last fall, QE2, has nothing to do with the massive surge in food energy and other commodity prices and speculation that we’ve seen since then?
To listen to The Takeaway's interview with David Stockman, yesterday: