What Ben Bernanke Is Really Saying

The Automatic Earth

Ever wonder what Bernanke is saying? Well, it boils down to this: at the same time that Jimmy Carter says the US doesn’t have a functioning democracy, Ben Bernanke says the US doesn’t have a functioning economy.

Unfortunately, people understand what Carter says, though they may not agree with him, but they do not understand what Bernanke says, and that has nothing to do with agreeing with him or not. Moe likely it has something to do with the illusionary oracle qualities once attributed to his predecessor Alan Greenspan, whenever no-one had a clue what he was saying. In reality, Ben Bernanke will turn out to be the biggest scourge on American society since the same Alan Greenspan, but that’s not how he’s seen; instead, just like Greenspan, he’s idolized. What’s wrong with this picture is that Bernanke’s words and actions are interpreted in the press exclusively by people who live in the part of society that stands to profit from them, let’s call it “the financial world”. That they are but a very small part of society easily gets lost in translation.

Greenspan was and still is mostly regarded as a miracle worker of super-human intelligence, even though he ran the US straight into the recession/depression/crisis we’ve now been witnessing since about the day when Bernanke took over the Fed, February 1 2006. Greenspan set the American economy firmly on the road to ruin through his support of the Glass-Steagall repeal and various tax-cuts, as well as his insistence that the newly blossoming derivatives trade needed little or no regulation. Certainly in hindsight, it should be obvious that Alan Greenspan served the interests of Wall Street, not Main Street.

All Ben Bernanke has done since succeeding the Oracle is continue where the former left off. Not that you would know it from the picture the media paint of him. Or the president, for that matter. Just about everyone agrees that he saved the US from something like a Great Recession II. In reality, what Bernanke has done over the past 6.5 years is being a prominent player in aiding and abetting Wall Street banks in hiding their losses through the violation of accounting standards, declaring them Too-Big-To-Fail, and then handing them trillions of dollars in public funds, most recently through QE programs, thus enabling them, the very same banks that would no longer exist without public funds, to once again play the casinos and come up with near record profits and bonuses.

This is the great little scheme that is presented to you through the media as “saving the US economy”. It has done no such thing. It has been, and still is, enormously harmful to the economy. But as long as you continue to believe that what’s good for Wall Street is also good for Main Street, the trick will continue to be played on you; Ben Bernanke is giving free money (well, actually, credit) away to those whose interests he represents, the banks, and taking it from those he doesn’t, you. What Bernanke has saved is bankers’ bonuses, not the economy. And if there is a direct correlation between the two, it’s not the one you’re being tempted to think it is. Which is how you should interpret Bernanke’s insistence before Congress on July 17 that “We’re very focused on Main Street”: it may be true, but not in the way he wants you to believe it is.

Here’s how Bernanke said the US doesn’t have a functioning economy: by choosing to continue QE, he would reveal how weak the US financial system is. He already has, obviously, first by starting up QE in the first place, and again by his recent backpedaling on the conditions for tapering. The worst wet dream of the big banks is that they wouldn’t get their black jack chips for free anymore, and they manage to convince everyone that the real economy would go down if they can no longer play. Regardless of the details: if it needs free money, the financial system can’t stand on its own two legs.

By choosing to halt QE, on the other hand, Bernanke would reveal how weak the financial system is just as much. The slight rise in available credit that has allowed Americans to add yet more debt towards home and automobile purchases, giving the economy a fleetingly rosy glow in the process, would be over in a heartbeat. The banks would sit on their QE free excess reserve giveaways parked at the Fed even more than they already do. And then use it as security for more leveraged high-risk wagers. That’s where the money is, not in consumer loans. Don’t worry, says Ben, we’ll keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future. Hossanah, sings the entire choir. But interest rates for whom? Only the big banks, that’s for whom. Rates on the street, not so much: he has no control over those.

Here’s an example of Bernanke’s effect on Main Street: debt has been rising, not falling, since debt plunged the markets into that deep dark pit. A graph I picked up here at Zero Hedge:

The US may not look like the worst horse in the slaughterhouse, but in absolute numbers it probably is. Debt has risen by some 40% of GDP, and that does not yet include financial corporations and the Fed.

Is the new and additional debt at least put to good use for American society? The answer is a resounding “no”. Just take a look at the diminishing productivity of debt in the US. Which, as is evident from these two graphs, will soon turn into negative territory, if it isn’t already there.

The huge amounts of debt the Fed (and government) policies are adding will result in hardly any GDP growth. What does seem to be there in growth or recovery, moreover, comes from individuals taking on additional debt for home and automobile purchases. Bernanke, even if he would be trying to help Main Street, would be pushing on a string regardless. And I have no qualms about suggesting that he knows all this, which leads to one possible conclusion only: he is not trying. If he were, he’d adopt totally different policies. QE is not helping Main Street; it’s killing it. Not today perhaps, but we should broaden our view beyond today, and consider what happens tomorrow.

Here’s another example of how Bernanke is killing Main Street, courtesy of Chris Turner at Zero Hedge:

continue article at The Automatic Earth:

http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/what-ben-bernanke-is-really-saying.html