Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke passed the Senate Banking Committee for reconfirmation by a vote of 16-to-7. Every Republican and one Democrat voted against. According to Larry Kudlow, this means the vote could get interesting once the vote hits the Senate floor.
The reconfirmation now goes to the floor of the Senate, where it’s going to be held up for a while as Sen. Jim DeMint
and others insist that the GAO Fed audit be voted on before Bernanke’s final vote.
That audit, by the way, would reveal the Fed’s FOMC policy discussions after six months, rather than the current-law five years. This is a good thing. More prompt disclosure. The public has a right to know, especially since Bernanke (as Alan Greenspan’s right-hand man) was instrumental in creating the easy-money housing and energy bubble that sank the economy, and since Bernanke (as Fed chairman) has provided unbelievable, ultra-easy, free-money, zero interest rates for too long.
The real question – why would Bernanke want to stay, especially if there is any dirty laundry in the Audit? The banks are carrying loads of toxic assets and inflation is going to squash any economic recovery like a bug. Rufus would be the one to ask, but any economic economy would be stifled by rising gas prices in response to inflation, as well as a shrinking dollar.
For most of this decade, the Fed has been fighting unemployment by pumping in easy money. And it keeps telling us this will not cause inflation. With the CPI hitting nearly 5 percent in 2006 and almost 6 percent in 2008, Bernanke was dead wrong. And the fact remains that more money creation from the Fed produces inflation — not jobs or long-term economic growth.
Kudlow predicts at least 35 to 40 Republicans voting against Bernanke, with a few Democrats voting with them – a vote of no-confidence if there is one.
The committee 17 dems and only 6 republicans which also consists of almost a quarter of the Senate? I know the GOP is only 40% of the Senate, but those numbers sound wrong. A vote of 10-7 makes more sense.
Wish I knew about committees and their sizes, but that was Kudlow’s numbers. Banking is a fairly important committee, any that importance means more members?
Kudlow got his numbers mixed up.
That committee has 13 Dems and 10 Repubs.
He may have updated his story. It says “most” Republicans voted against him.
Yeah. Shortly after I saw another report that listed, by name, 7 republicans and 1 democrat, so there was something wrong. Just another example of how the journalists just can’t seem to ever get the details right, no matter the affiliation. It’s something that’s just systemically wrong with professional journalism. If we could be sure that the facts were always right, the biases might actually be tolerable. (Being part of cover-ups, like the Tiger Woods fiasco, doesn’t help, either.)
No slights intended to any professional journalists here..
What I love about getting all my news online, Raoul, is that confirmation of anything that looks hinky is usually just a mouse-click away.