Gorilla's Blog

You can call me nothing, or by my given name: Ben Bernanke.

Now certainly tied with Greenspan and Trichet as the worst central bankers of our lifetimes.

They’re intellectually bankrupt, amoral clowns who think that the suffering of millions is worth far less than the suffering of 5% inflation and wealthy bond traders.

Gorilla says: “Let’s hope they’re cursed to lead the needlessly miserable lives they inflict on the rest of us!”

Here’s the latest from Helicopter Ben!

Yep, it’s a fine analysis of what’s wrong, but neglects to mention what might be done to ameliorate the two very large problems Ben identifies:

Unemployment problem: “Importantly, the slow recovery in the labor market and the attendant uncertainty about job prospects are weighing on household confidence and spending. After two years of job losses, private payrolls expanded at an average of about 100,000 per month during the first half of this year, an improvement but still a pace insufficient to reduce the unemployment rate materially. In all likelihood, significant time will be required to restore the nearly 8-1/2 million jobs that were lost over 2008 and 2009. Moreover, nearly half of the unemployed have been out of work for longer than six months. Long-term unemployment not only imposes exceptional near-term hardships on workers and their families, it also erodes skills and may have long-lasting effects on workers’ employment and earnings prospects.”

Unemployment solution: Do nothing! Wait for economic recovery! At the present rate of job creation, it will only take another 7 years to make up for the jobs lost since 2007!

State fiscal disaster problem: “With revenues down and Medicaid spending up, other categories of spending by state governments have been tightly squeezed. Over the past year, numerous state governments have laid off or furloughed employees, decreased capital spending, and reduced aid to local governments. Indeed, state and local payrolls have fallen by more than 200,000 jobs from their peak near the end of 2008. Some states have also raised taxes, but the weak economy has made it difficult to find significant new revenues.”

State fiscal disaster solution: Do nothing! Wait for economic recovery! We’d be so much worse off if the states could borrow money and stop laying off workers and cutting back services!!!

Gorilla says: “It’s all about confidence, so you unemployed wasters should be more optimistic! Of course any confidence you may have in a clown like Ben Bernanke to solve your problems is sadly misplaced!”