What the hell is going on within the Dem Party & Bernanke?

[Reform]

Ive been watching the Sunday talking heads and i have seen Durbin say he will vote for Bernanke and i also seen Axlerod Praising Mr.Bernanke.
I then saw McCain say he will more than likely vote against MR.Bernanke.

Why in the blue hell am i having to agree with any righty on this issue and disagree with Dem leaders.
It's like topsy turvy land
it is pissing me off.

[Leopolds Ghost]

1. It only takes one Senator to block action in Congress. Yay!

[Enrique]

6. but they can move foward with 60 votes

or so I just read. Bernie Sanders has a hold, and they need 60 votes to overcome it, which people are saying they probably will have.

[endless october]

2. good question.

i'm not sure why this dude is getting Democratic support.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Krugman thinks he's wonderful, FWIW.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

7. That's a little broad (he respects him but is "agonizing" on reappointment)

Krugman on Bernake:

Where am I? Right now, I’m agonizing — which isn’t a place I ever expected to be, and not just because Bernanke hired me at Princeton.

The pro case is obvious: Ben Bernanke is a great economist, whose work on monetary economics has been a crucial guide to action in this crisis, and he applied his academic insights forcefully in 2008 and early 2009, helping pull the world back from the brink.

Against that are two factors. One is that he completely failed to see the trouble building as the housing bubble inflated — and no, it wasn’t one of those things nobody could have predicted, since a lot of reputable economists were warning almost frantically about the bubble. True, Bernanke’s failure to see what was right in front of his nose was shared by almost everyone at the Fed — but as I’ll explain in a moment, that’s actually part of the problem.

The second is that since the acute phase of the crisis came to an end, and especially since his renomination, Bernanke has seemed out of touch with the severe problems that remain. He hasn’t engaged in any self-criticism, at a time when we really need to know that policymakers can learn from their mistakes. He hasn’t been a strong voice for financial reform. And most important from my point of view, he has seemed deeply worried about defending himself against the inflation hawks, not at all concerned with the question of whether the Fed is doing all it should to fight catastrophically high unemployment. (It isn’t).

As I see it, the two things that worry me about Bernanke stem from the same cause: to a greater degree than I had hoped, he has been assimilated by the banking Borg. In 2005, respectable central bankers dismissed worries about a housing bubble, ignoring the evidence; in the winter of 2009-2010, respectable central bankers are worried about nonexistent inflation rather than actually existing unemployment. And Bernanke, alas, has become too much of a respectable central banker.

That said, however, what is the alternative? Calculated Risk says we can do better. But can we, really?

It’s not that hard to think of people who have the intellectual chops for the job of Fed chair but aren’t fully part of the Borg. But it’s very hard to think of people with those qualities who have any chance of actually being confirmed, or of carrying the FOMC with them even if named as chairman (which is one reason why this suggestion is crazy). Does it make sense to deny Bernanke reappointment simply in order to appoint someone who would follow the same policies?

And yet, the Fed really needs to be shaken out of its complacency.

As I said, I’m agonizing.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/the-bernanke-conundrum/#more-6825

[GeorgeGist]

16. Krugman's a lousy judge ...

"Bernanke is a great economist".

"Bernanke’s failure to see what was right in front of his nose was shared by almost everyone at the Fed"

[sandnsea]

8. No, he doesn't

He thinks Bernanke is very smart. And he thinks nobody could do a better job with the current crisis. He does not agree with Bernanke's monetary policy anymore, at least from what I read. He doesn't think "he's wonderful", he thinks he's the best bet for stabilization.

[kenny blankenship]

4. They all answer to bankers.

Wall St. is Mr. Bernanke's constituency. In turn he showers them with easy money. They nominate him and the Senate complies. Or the whip hand comes down.

[sandnsea]

5. Volcker supports Bernanke too

The very convoluted reasoning, as far as I can tell, is that since we've staked our fortunes in Bernanke's monetary policy, if we now say "oops we were wrong", the world will have a complete meltdown and dump our treasuries and holy fuck that would be a real disaster. So we have to stick with this pure idiot and god is he an idiot, because really, there's nobody smarter than him anyway.

That's what my morning reading from all sorts of people, pro and con, has led me to conclude. Common sense says, when you're in a hole, stop digging. But common sense is not prevailing on Bernanke.

[haele]

9. Stock portfolios?

"Hey, he promised my investments would remain the same if I kept him in."
Not to say the righties wouldn't push to have Bernanke approved if their party leaders were in charge and he was a Republican nominee. Especially since politics is a "career" and quite a lot of the politicians in both parties who get elected are pretty much mediocre professionals who are great at socializing but poor on thinking past their own interests.
He may be smart, but he also helped get us into this mess. Let's hope he's not just yanking chains to keep his skin together for the next four years, but he's actually had a Scrooge momnent and realizes that economic theories are not necissarily good economic practices.

Ultimately, it's all about the Benjamins. (yes, it's a pun!)

Haele

[Strelnikov_]

12. You have summed up the dilemma in one sentence

"quite a lot of the politicians in both parties who get elected are pretty much mediocre professionals who are great at socializing but poor on thinking past their own interests."

[Subdivisions]

10. Of course they're going to re-confirm Bernanke. The job of bankrupting the U.S. is not complete. n/t

[Skink]

11. The stock market is up.

IF for some reason he isn't reconfirmed then put in Summers to keep the fed on it's course. Then put a real Economic team in place.

[Bitwit1234]

13. LOOK Obama is starting to twist arms to get him approved

how in Hades can he find the guts to do this, and not be able to twist arms to get a good health care bill passed. Now tell me isn't for Wall Street and the Bankers.

[sandnsea]

14. They made calls on health care too

Is it time to play Count The Democrats? Baucus, Conrad, Dorgan, Landrieu, Lincoln, Two Nelsons, Pryor, and then there's Lieberman.

Bernanke has Republican support, consequently there is much less arm twisting involved.

It is just hysterical how a phone call you disapprove of is called "arm twisting", but a phone call for something you do approve of is called spineless.

[MisterP]

15. it's just the party's rightward cantering since FDR died, which picked up in 1988 with the DLC

and we'll keep having two right-wing parties as long as Dems keep folding in Congress and in the voting booth, settling for the lesser of two evils "because they're better": well, being given lymphoma and a lollipop is "better" than being given pancreatic cancer, but neither "choice" is good

Brown's election is a warning of this binary system: if people are sickened and disappointed by one choice, they'll take the #2 one, even if that one's equally sickening: America will have to look out for crypto-conservative false populists this Novemeber. They'll also have to look out for the Republican candidates.

[glitch]

17. The parties are interchangeable now. It's corporate plug and play time.nt