Always. Some days, the moral bankruptcy of the right wing is really too much to take in:
On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and their respective number twos sent an extraordinary letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. “It is our understanding that the Board Members of the Federal Reserve will meet later this week to consider additional monetary stimulus proposals,” they say. “We write to express our reservations about any such measures.”
It is not intrinsically illegitimate for congressional leadership to convey its preferences to the Federal Reserve. The Fed is protected from political interference, not from the opinions of politicians. But it is quite unusual for the leaders of a major political party to make a public, unified request of the chairman, and to ask that their request “be shared with each Member of the Board.”
And let’s be honest. The implication of this letter is that Ben Bernanke backs off or political interference comes next. As Bernanke knows, Boehner and McConnell have a posse. Gov. Rick Perry has threatened to “treat him pretty ugly” if he engages in further monetary easing, and Gov. Rick Perry may soon be President Rick Perry. John Taylor, the most popular monetary economist on the right, is writing op-eds saying the Fed should be stripped of its dual mandate. Rep. Ron Paul, who wants to “end the Fed,” was put in charge of the House Subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve.
So sure, this letter isn’t threatening to do anything now. It’s just making clear that the Republican leadership in Congress is strongly opposed to any further attempts to help the economy. It’s the subtext that Bernanke and others will find threatening: The Republican Party is unified in its backlash to the Federal Reserve, and they may well be in power two years from now. Does Bernanke really want to provoke them? Is that really a good thing for his institution?In other words: Nice central bank you got here. Shame if something should happen to it.
As if the majority of the Fed doesn’t already consist of inflationistas. Do more than one or two of them even mention unemployment, ever? I see this as mere political posturing for the election. The Fed is the well trained poodle of big money capitalists. Besides, monetary policy is just pushing a string in this enviroment. All they’ve done is inflate asset prices to prop up the stock markets and real estate. We need fiscal policy directed at maximum jobs impact, and the Republicans along with the President and most of the Democrats in the Senate (“gang of” 6 or 38 or whatever the collaborators are calling themselves today) are all on board to prevent that.
guest, the Committee is a joke. Any ‘report’ that they produce, or more likely and as you said they won’t produce, because they will gridlock, will aloso be a joke. Capitalism no longer works. At least not the kind that we work under these days right here in the good old US of A. The members of the Committee, the Congress and the rest of the oligarchy refuse to adjust to that fact. Too bad for them.
Imhotep, also, alas, in the near run and perhaps even longer, too bad for all of us.