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Friday, December 4, 2009

Bernanke takes his lumps in Senate hearing

No doubt, President Obama had a more enjoyable day at his jobs summit than Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke did at his renomination roasting.

Watching a webcast of the president taking questions from the businesspeople and others in attendance, I saw a leader who’s quick on his feet and able to stick to the themes of his economic recovery plan.

Elsewhere in Washington, the more important meeting featured the Fed chairman getting grilled by members of the Senate Banking Committee. Call it a draw. The senators bruised him, but Bernanke didn’t crack.

Fed watchers remain convinced that Bernanke will win a second term, but over what kind of central bank will he be presiding? Will it get more power, but lose independence from political pressure? Will Congress wind up damaging the Fed’s credibility in the eyes of global investors in the name of reform?

The Fed, like other regulators, made its share of mistakes before the financial crisis. But Bernanke’s Fed unleashed an imaginative set of tools to try to keep the entire system from collapse.

With a U.S. economy that’s backed away from the ledge, Bernanke should be allowed to unwind the extraordinary measures that continue to keep this economy beating, rather than bleeding.

What Summit?

No one will remember anything about Obama’s Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth a year from now.

Critics derided it as public relations. Advocates for the unemployed protested over being snubbed. Some posters who watched proceedings on Facebook seemed content just to hear important issues being discussed.

Of the 130 people invited to attend, there were some with local ties:

* David R. Brennan, chief executive officer of AstraZeneca P.L.C., the London-based drug company that employs more than 5,000 in Northern Delaware. Before becoming CEO in 2006, he had worked in AstraZeneca’s Wilmington area offices.

* Gregory S. Bentley, chief executive officer of Bentley Systems Inc., a privately held Exton software developer.

* And David Lincoln, managing partner of Element Partners, a Radnor private-equity firm that invests in clean-tech companies.
 
Posted by Mike Armstrong @ 2:05 AM  Permalink | File Under: Politics, Taxes | 3 comments
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  • Comment removed.
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 9:34 AM, 12/04/2009
    I'd like to know if Bernanke intends to continue the policies that have surpressed middle class wage growth. Every time job pressure started to increase wages, the Fed raised interest rates to prevent "inflation". And middle class wages have gone down for two straight decades as a result. Now we can see that the middle class consumer is the single most important driver of the economy and needs to be protected. And I'd like an explanation why the Fed did nothing until we were on the brink of a depression and the warning signs were there for at least a year before the whole thing collapsed last fall. I know, middle class wages need to go down so we can "compete" in the global economy. One little problem: the US is the only country in the world with massive trade deficits and middle class consumers are the ones buying the imported goods. In other words, the US middle class IS the global economy. But we need to cut middle class wages so we can compete in the US middle class driven global economy. Yeah, right. It's really driven by greed. We see goods from China that cost significantly less to manufacturer but a fraction of the savings goes to the middle class consumer. It goes to ridiculous executive salaries and investors. And the investors are those same overpaid executives. Worked well, didn't it?
    — MikeP
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:55 AM, 12/05/2009
    The Fed is like fireman who turns closet arsonist and sets a fire, then the just happens to drive by and save the family and becone the heroes. The Fed greatly helped the non sense that went on the for a decade and was the greatest theft of $$$$ from the middle class and poor right to the clowns on Wall Street.
    — Tageman


3 comments
About Mike Armstrong
Mike Armstrong, a business editor and writer for nearly two decades, is the Inquirer's business columnist and PhillyInc blog editor. Contact Mike via e-mail or at 215-854-2980
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