Volcker punctures the nonsense

[girl gone mad]

Volcker punctures the nonsense
By The Mogambo Guru
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KD25Dj01.html">Asia Times

Paul Volcker, the legendary former chairman of the Federal Reserve who heroically and against powerful political opposition defeated raging inflation arising from massive government spending in the 1960s and 1970s on wars and increased entitlements, and who is now mysteriously part of the ridiculous Barack Obama team of economic nitwits occupying in the White House, has finally said something.

After all these months of sheer economic idiocy flooding from the White House, Congress, the Federal Reserve and everywhere you turn, Paul Volcker has finally spoken.

And, even more deliciously, he said it to Fed vice chairman Donald Kohn, one of the arrogant, lowlife mental defectives whose egregious monetary actions got us into the mess we are in, at
Volcker punctures the nonsense
By The Mogambo Guru

Paul Volcker, the legendary former chairman of the Federal Reserve who heroically and against powerful political opposition defeated raging inflation arising from massive government spending in the 1960s and 1970s on wars and increased entitlements, and who is now mysteriously part of the ridiculous Barack Obama team of economic nitwits occupying in the White House, has finally said something.

After all these months of sheer economic idiocy flooding from the White House, Congress, the Federal Reserve and everywhere you turn, Paul Volcker has finally spoken.

And, even more deliciously, he said it to Fed vice chairman Donald Kohn, one of the arrogant, lowlife mental defectives whose egregious monetary actions got us into the mess we are in, at some dorky "question-and-answer session at a conference" in Nashville, Tennessee.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, "The former Fed chairman grilled Mr Kohn over the Fed's effort to convey that it considers a 2% inflation rate to be appropriate for the US economy in the long term" and he, "questions how the Fed can talk about both 2% inflation and price stability".

Mr Volcker actually said, "I don't get it", which is a Big Fat Lie (BFL), because he understands it perfectly, but he is just so polite and so politic that he finds it hard to say, as I would have so succinctly put it, "How in the hell can you talk about purposely creating at least 2% inflation in prices and then talk about the Fed's duty to pursue price stability at the same freaking time, which gives rise to the expression 'talking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time', and also gives rise to an occasion for me to call you a lying halfwit economic ignoramus who thinks that everybody else is so stupid that you can say such utter preposterous crap like this to me and think I am going to swallow it!"

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KD25Dj01.html">More...

[babylonsister]

1. Does he or doesn't he, in your opinion? Is this a hit or not? nt

[girl gone mad]

2. I agree with Volcker. n/t

[babylonsister]

3. Wow. OK. I thought you'd educate me. That's it? nt

[girl gone mad]

4. Allowing 2% annual inflation would mean that over time..

the vast majority of people would have to accept a lower standard of living, particularly in this era of stagnant and declining wages. As Volcker says, in a generation Americans will have lost half of their purchasing power. We will have to work harder and longer to pay our bills, send our kids to college, etc. We should be cautious about pursuing a policy of inflation as a means of getting out of this recession. I don't see any signs that inflation is a real concern right now, though.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. Mogambo Guru

He's good for a laugh sometimes, but he invariably tends to place the blame for a bad economy on domestic programs run by "socialists" and the Fed. It wasn't the paltry dollars that were spent on "entitlement programs" that caused the inflation of the 1970s-- a combination of rising wages, rising fuel costs, and transition to a completely fiat monetary system that was completed in 1971 were far more important elements of the '70s inflation, which occurred in all Western countries. Inflation was "tamed" in the 1980s by decreasing fuel prices, by opening the floodgates to cheaper imports, by outsourcing US manufacturing jobs, and by having the big box stores run the mom-and-pops out of business.

[Hannah Bell]

6. volker's no hero. more like a tool. the oil-price-derived inflation was the excuse to bust wages &

unions & put small producers out of business.

[roamer65]

7. Volcker is single-handedly responsible for the destruction of the nation's industrial base.

He started this process with his 21% interest rates. I have no use for him and am in your camp, Hannah.

[upi402]

8. Volker is a corporatist

All Hail the Uniparty
me thinks i'm done

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Anyone who reads The Mogambo Guru

gets extra "'good sense" brownie points from me.

Thanks for posting.