Stupidity and Ignorance on Capitol Hill Our congressional leaders showed their true colors during th
View your credit file based on any of the UK credit reference agencies, or all three at once
LifeLock is the only Identity Theft Prevention Solution backed by a one-million dollar guarantee!Click here to get a 10% discount.
Stupidity and Ignorance on Capitol Hill
Our congressional leaders showed their true colors during this week鈥檚 sit-down with the Fed.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke presented his semi-annual monetary report to Congress this week. Bernanke was disciplined and on message. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Congress.
Members of both the House and Senate appeared ill-prepared and off-message, using their time to address the extraneous and irrelevant (to monetary policy). How, for instance, is the Fed chairman supposed to influence poverty and college loans with the federal funds rate?
Many congressmen and women have tried to beat up Bernanke over wages not rising fast enough relative to inflation (including food and energy). Not only do many members of Congress have their facts wrong (real non-supervisory wages have risen at two times the rate during this cycle than the first five-and-a-half years of the last), but they鈥檙e inconsistent since not one would want the chairman to hike the funds rate because of the elevated energy prices they decry.
In other words, congressional 鈥渓eaders鈥?berate the Fed chairman over high energy prices, lampoon him for a focus on core inflation, and then scold him for having raised rates too much! It鈥檚 a heady combination of hypocrisy, stupidity, and ignorance that鈥檚 otherwise known as Washington D.C.
In any event, for those who were actually listening, there were several important takeaways from the Bernanke testimony. The Fed slightly lowered its estimates for 2007 and 2008 growth, but kept its inflation forecasts unchanged. This necessarily implies that the Fed has lowered its estimate for productivity (potential), which is why the downward tweak to its growth estimates didn鈥檛 impact its outlook for inflation or the unemployment rate.
More Related Questions and Answers ...
The loan information post by website user , we not guarantee correctness.