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July 18, 2013
Actually, Bernanke Has Done a “Phenomenal Job”: Jack Rivkin
The ‘happening’ Rivkin refers to is the slow but steady recovery the U.S. economy has mustered since the dark days of the financial crisis.
Would Typhoid Mary have done a "phenomenal job" if she had offered ZIRP to her victims? It certainly sounds medicinal.
Perhaps "victims" isn't quite the right word. I'm sure Ben Bernanke was doing all he could to warn investors of the risks at the very top of the housing bubble.
But if Bernanke is confirmed as Fed chief, and if the housing market slows more than he expects, he would be unlikely to use the central bank's power over short-term interest rates to prop up falling housing prices for the sake of individual homeowners, according to comments he has made in numerous speeches and statements in academic papers.
"There's no housing bubble to go bust" but even if there is one, don't expect 4+ years of ZIRP? Memory lane sure cracks me up sometimes. Heck of a job Bernanke! ;)
Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart
10 comments:
Maybe Jack Rivkin needs a math refresher.
“I think [Bernanke’s Fed] deserves more than 100% of the credit for what’s been happening here.”
Bernanke certainly deserves blame, err credit, for what's been happening, but I don't think there is more than 100% blame, err, credit to assign.
I think that particular fail is due to government policy rather than ZIRP.
Mr Slippery,
We live in an overleveraged society. It is therefore easy to get $500,000 in credit with a single dollar in one's pocket.
Perhaps that is what Mr. Rivkin was trying to say, lol. Sigh.
Who Struck John,
Yeah. I did the chart and thought, wow, that's a slow steady recovery.
Then I went looking for filler. ;)
Put another way, ZIRP came in response to the fail. I agree that it did not cause the fail.
On the other hand, easy credit got us here in my opinion. ZIRP could hardly be called hard credit.
ZIRP is a dog of the hair that bit us. ;)
http://jazzbumpa.blogspot.com/2009/12/ben-bernanke-meh-of-year.html
Same as it ever was.
JzB
Jazzbumpa,
How many years must ZIRP continue before he officially becomes Meh of the Decade?
It's actually a trick question.
The answer we are looking for is:
Which decade?
Gallows humor.
On the other hand, easy credit got us here in my opinion
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=lbP
real per-capita debt per person (age 25-54)
because young people and old people shouldn't have debt, 'k
let's throw in per-capita gov't debt in green:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=lbQ
::problem?::
Troy,
Hey, at least the total of your two series hasn't exponentially failed yet. That's something I guess. Sigh.
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