Bernanke & Krugman: A Conspiracy of Counterfeiters

[bobbyw24]

By Patrick J Buchanan

By November 1923, the German currency was worthless, hauled about in wheelbarrows to buy groceries. The middle class had been destroyed. German housewives were prostituting themselves to feed their families. That same month, Adolf Hitler attempted his Munich Beer Hall Putsch.

Today a coterie of economists is prodding Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to induce inflation into the American economy.

Fearing falling prices, professor Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, is pushing for an inflation rate of 5 to 6 percent while conceding that his proposal is rife with peril and "we could end up with 200 percent inflation."

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner and columnist for The New York Times, is pushing Bernanke in the same direction.

Bernanke, writes Krugman, should take the advice he gave Japan in 2000, when he urged the Bank of Japan to stimulate the economy with "an announcement that the bank was seeking moderate inflation, 'setting a target in the 3-4 percent range for inflation, to be maintained for a number of years.'"

And who inspired Bernanke to urge Tokyo to inflate? Krugman modestly credits himself.

"Was Mr. Bernanke on the right track? I think so -- as well I should, since his paper was partly based on my own earlier work."

But Krugman is not optimistic about Bernanke's injecting the U.S. economy with a sufficient dose of inflation.

http://townhall.com/columnists/patbuchanan/2011/08/30/a_conspiracy_of_counterfeiters/page/full/

 

[bobbyw24]

Political threats blocking best policies for recovery - Paul Krugman

Investors around the world anxiously awaited Ben Bernanke's speech at the annual Fed gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Friday. They wanted to know whether Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, would unveil new policies that might lift the U.S. economy out of what is looking more and more like a quasi-permanent state of depressed demand and high unemployment.

But as I expected, Bernanke proposed nothing - that is, nothing likely to make any serious dent in unemployment or offer any serious boost to growth.

Why didn't I expect much from Bernanke? In two words: Rick Perry.

OK, I don't mean that Perry, the governor of Texas, is personally standing in the way of effective monetary policy. Not yet, anyway. Instead, I'm using Perry - who has famously threatened Bernanke with dire personal consequences if he pursues expansionary monetary policy before the 2012 election - as a symbol of the political intimidation that is killing our last remaining hope for economic recovery.

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outloo...hreats-blocking-best-policies-for-2143220.php

 

[swissaustrian]

Clearly Rick Perry is the alien invader whom Krugman called for.

 

[bobbyw24]

Clearly Rick Perry is the alien invader whom Krugman called for.

Rep +1