POLL: Are you confident in Ben Bernanke's ability as Fed Chairman to get the economy moving?

“POLL: Are you confident in Ben Bernanke's ability as Fed Chairman to get the economy moving?”
______________________________________________________________

I have been having this discussion more frequently with a wider range of people each time..that in itself is an indicator!
Let's review, the role of the Federal Reserve; first of all, it is Banker to the US and lender of last/first resort(Fed window) for federal banks experiencing short term cash flow issues. Since 1946 it has also been charged with somehow "maintaining a healthy economy". There are other roles but these are the ones I will focus on. A Chairman, even Mr. Bernanke, can do only so much (limited tools) to the real economy, because the Fed is a reactionary force, not an innovator. True economic growth cannot be legislated or bureaucratically created (failed Soviet experiment). The role of the Fed and Mr. Bernanke particularly, is to respond to both the changed culture on Wall Street and the horrendous damage that has been wreaked on the US and to a lesser extent the global economy recently. Is he doing a good job?..NO. Why? Because the Fed is owned and indirectly managed by the same people they regulate.
Finally, let's revisit the question. It is not the role of the government to "get the economy moving" but, to simply put the elements in place for the private sector to increase manufacturing and service activity! Any effort by the government is short term and meant to stave off a disaster until the private sector reenergizes. In the US today that issue is problemmatic. That may explain why so many people are looking to the government to structurally impact growth in the private sector. The predictable result has been an even more symbiotic relationship with the private financial intermediaries and the Fed but no real positive impact on the basic economy.

I have no confidence whatsoever in Bernanke. He has been 'easing' for years and it continues to do little to nothing to spur economic growth. The one impact that his policies ARE having is absolutely decimating the value of the US Dollar. The only thing preventing the dollar from complete collapse is the fact that Europe is in even worse shape than the US (for most of the same policy reasons).

Bernanke's policies will be disastrous in the longer-term, and will leave future generations with a massive pile of debt and a worthless currency, leaving no way to pay back that debt.

This country desperately needs another Paul Volcker - a Fed chairman who is willing to make the hard decisions, restore the soundness of our currency and create an economic environment where private industry, not government profligacy, can get the economy back on track.

No, after listening to part of his meeting yesterday with reporters I came away with a clear sense he does not have a clue. It was interesting how his forecasts really did nothing more than kick the can down the road in terms of what he sees happening with unemployment and the GDP. My fear is the Fed is becoming more and more political in what they do and what they say. A strong Fed is an independent Fed.

Nope. We seem to be following similar policies to many of the European nations whose economies are about to tumble. It's going to get ugly.

No.

Bernanke is either incapable of seeing his failures, or incapable of learning from them. "Quantitative Easing" is nothing more than an inflating of the money supply, and a socio-politically destructive one as well, in that it is seen by the public (those cognizant of it) as more favors for Wall St. and the Banksters...and in a way, it is.

As other have said, the Fed is just one slice of the pie, albeit an important one. With respect to stimulating the economy, it is not just Taxes but also Regulation and the (un)favorability of "Free Trade" agreements. Regulation adds nearly as much of a burden as taxation to lightly-regulated businesses, and more in the heavily-regulated industries: and we definitely need to invite more manufacturing to the US if we ever hope to recover in blue-collar jobs.

The Congress and the Executive Branch in Washington DC must get on-board with a spending- and size-of-government reduction plan if we hope to lift the albatross of burdensome government from the economy so it can 'fly' again. As others have alluded to, the current policy set in Washington has been tried in Moscow and it led to the destruction of their economy and eventual collapse of their government. If that's what it's going to take, then let's get on with it because in the meantime we will all descend into the 'equal poverty' that is the blessing of the Socialist state.

NO, after watching Inside Job doc on financial meltdown I have 0 confidence in his or Fed's competency/decision making abilities.

This could be a disingenuous or trick question

The first answer is No.

Within his own framework and its constraints, Bernanke is doing as good a job as J-C Trichet of the European Central Bank.

That means the answer is Yes.

But the problem gets worse. So the answer is No again.

If you took one of the factors you mentioned, interest rates, Bernanke is just like Trichet or the Bank of Japan governor M Shirakawa - unable to do anything. If he hiked interest rates anything more than say 1% or 2% over 3 months, the US and global economy would implode.The governors of these central banks dont have any choice.

The possibility of doing what Vance did at the start of the 1980s is 100% impossible today, so - just for example - the US dollar has to go devaluing

So that makes the answer No, again.

I think whats needed is a recognition that the common basic causes produce the same results: Greece is just a micro-version of the USA but doesnt have a world reserve currency as big as the US dollar, to play lucky with

Here is Europe plenty of folks recognize the Greek crisis for what it is: proof the euro money and euro system dont work.

The ECB acts exactly like the US Fed, you will note, so why should the results be any different ?

No. That's not his job.

N0. He along cannot do it alone and some elements involved in solving this problem are not something one person can affect (e.g., consumer sentiment or willingness to spend, consumer saving, rate of new job creation, et al.). The govt can only do so much!

Tax hikes spur economic growth? What planet are you from? After WWII, everyones manufacturing base in the world was bombed to crap, except ours. We could have the luxury of charging whatever we wanted on taxes because we were the only game in town. The reality of the situation today is much different from then, we have emerging economies that use a lot of resources. If we want jobs to return, we must be willing to challenge India and China for all that investment capital floating around.. right now, all that capital is flowing into China because they have the highest ROI for investors with their business friendly climate.

While here in the USA, our government seems to be doing its best to chase competition and investment capital out of the country. We have become an anti-business country, our government has been down right hostile businesses over the past couple of years, under the assumption that, we are America and we don't need to compete. News flash, we do need to compete, and the only way to get there is to match or beat China on its business and investment friendly climate. We will first have to start at the corporate tax rate and drop it to meet or beat Chinas at 25%... there is trillions of dollars made by American companies wordwide, but because we tax repatriated profits, that money will remain over seas. Lets drop that rate to zero to encourage that money come back. Capital gains taxes puts a boot on the neck of investment as well, nobody wants to sell assets to realize gains when they will be punished harshly... drop it to zero, it isn't needed, and it barely contributes to the government revenue stream.

If we want jobs to return, we must make America look attractive to invest in again, right now we are looking more and more like the Soviet Union, and we will continue on that decline to a collapse, just like they did unless we wise up and become a capitalist nation again through competition.

Tax hikes spur economic growth? What planet are you from? After WWII, everyones manufacturing base in the world was bombed to crap, except ours. We could have the luxury of charging whatever we wanted on taxes because we were the only game in town. The reality of the situation today is much different from then, we have emerging economies that use a lot of resources. If we want jobs to return, we must be willing to challenge India and China for all that investment capital floating around.. right now, all that capital is flowing into China because they have the highest ROI for investors with their business friendly climate.

While here in the USA, our government seems to be doing its best to chase competition and investment capital out of the country. We have become an anti-business country, our government has been down right hostile businesses over the past couple of years, under the assumption that, we are America and we don't need to compete. News flash, we do need to compete, and the only way to get there is to match or beat China on its business and investment friendly climate. We will first have to start at the corporate tax rate and drop it to meet or beat Chinas at 25%... there is trillions of dollars made by American companies wordwide, but because we tax repatriated profits, that money will remain over seas. Lets drop that rate to zero to encourage that money come back. Capital gains taxes puts a boot on the neck of investment as well, nobody wants to sell assets to realize gains when they will be punished harshly... drop it to zero, it isn't needed, and it barely contributes to the government revenue stream.

If we want jobs to return, we must make America look attractive to invest in again, right now we are looking more and more like the Soviet Union, and we will continue on that decline to a collapse, just like they did unless we wise up and become a capitalist nation again through competition.

No and that isn't the role of Federal Reserve. (Although I would add he is not qualified and suffers from Ivory Tower Syndrome)

Unfortunately the steps they have taken are simply leading to currency devaluation, growing risk of domestic inflation and a global weakening of the creditworthiness of the USD. Moody's is threatening to downgrade us!

The more government tries to fix things, the more problems they create. Government sponsored (and in many cases underwrote) aggressive and risky home loan practices which led to the initial problem. Too big to fail exacerbated it. Now "stimulus" and other so-called government solutions are weighing down this country. Throw in completely unfunded future liabilities (in the private sector companies would NEVER be allowed to play games with their pensions like this) and you've got big problems.

We need to run our country like businesses and homes run their budgets. Live within your means.

To those on the forum who say raise taxes on large companies and wealthy individuals. I would recommend you read the recent articles in the WSJ on the spurt of companies moving offshore to protect their income. Would you rather have 20% of $20 million or 40% of $0?

No, I think this is a situation beyond what The Fed can do.

No, one word "winds". How is it all of us in the private sector can see and understand the problems facing the economy, yet it appears few public officials local, state and fed seem to get it. I don't understand how all the economists employed by the gov't always miss the reality of our situation. Take a look at the feds predictions

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/files/fomcprojtabl20110622.pdf

Roy, "Common sense tells us that spending more not less is the way out of a recession" if that were true, why don't I believe it? Oh wait, I have been hearing such pronouncements since the 1960s and they are always wrong.

"It has worked for Roosevelt and other administrations in the past that have had to deal with an economy in such a state as ours is now."

I wasn't aware that FDR's spending brought the unemployment rate down, wasn't it WWII?

"In 2008 the federal government collected $2.5 trillion, an amount equal to 17.7 percent of GDP. Federal revenue has ranged from 14.4 to 20.9 percent of GDP over the past five decades, averaging 18.2 percent.
The individual income tax has been the largest single source of federal revenue since 1950, averaging just over 8 percent of GDP"

The above is from http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm

Somewhere on Focus a wise member shared with us that the revenues from all sources have historically been limited to about 18.2% of GDP. Federal spending is at 24% of GDP with no signs of coming down. If wishful thinking were a viable tax policy, perhaps raising the income taxes to grab another 4% of GDP would make sense. Wait one minute ... let me think ... that would mean we would need to raise the income tax from 8% of GDP to 12% of GDP. How much do we have to confiscate from the rich to get 12% of GDP?

To quote John McEnroe in his car commercial, "You can't be serious". BB is an academic who is so far out of his league in the real world. He's been on the record wrong aboout virtually every major economic issue over the past 10 years.Take a look:
http://themushroomfarm.blogspot.com/2010/01/if-ben-bernanke-were-nfl-head-coa...

No, and he has lost the confidence of the people of the USA. He should stick to his history profession.

NO: Bernanke's powers are limited as one cannot manipulate interest rates to negative numbers although devaluation of the dollar effectively does this. Unfortunately, devaluation of the dollar does nothing to keep inflation in check, nor does it help promote overall economic growth.

I think all of Washington needs to take off their monkey suits and take a walk through the country. This goes for the Fed, Congress and Obama and crew. Our government has lost touch with what is truly important. That would be the health and welfare of our people, the quality of the environment we live in, and the future we can create for our children.

If it takes getting back to basics to be able to make sustainable investments in our future then so be it! Let's try putting everything on the table including raising taxes if that is what it will take to repair the state of the public good. Tired of partisan politics? I sure am.

In a depression the true interest is negative. Estimated -2.7% now. Fed cannot be negative or zero, currently .25% minimum. In the 1930s Roosevelt increased government deficit spending to recover. If you're going to spend, best time is when interest is negative.

Reason there is no recovery is that money cost is 3% too high. Bernanke cannot do anything about that. He's not smart enough to be in charge because he did not see the Depression coming. Like 1840 and 1929 depressions, there were warning signs at the beginning of the decade. Note that Herbert Hoover and Herbert Bush reacted the same way, by giving more money to the banks and cutting government spending. Caused recovery to take ten years. The current Republicans are our ticket to Hooverville.

No, I'm not confident in his ability. However, unlike Mr. Christensen, I believe this IS a qualification issue. Mr. Bernanke is an academic - he knows nothing of real world economics. Sadly, the world does not run on theories. Very little of what Bernanke knows can help him - or us.

No, I am not confident in Ben Bernanke's powers to get the economy moving. The real issue behind the continued economic slow-down is limited oil supplies. These limited oil supplies manifest themselves first as high oil prices, then flow through to the rest of the economy in the form of higher food prices, reduced demand for discretionary goods, higher debt defaults, and reduced credit availability. James Hamilton has shown that in 10 out 11 post World War II recessions, oil price spikes preceded the recession. http://reason.com/archives/2011/03/08/oil-price-shocks-and-the-reces

Our government now understands this connection, but is fairly powerless to fix it, because it is related to the fact that the "easy oil" (translated to "cheap to extract" oil) has already been extracted. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote an article about the "Easy oil" being gone. "Facing up to the end of 'Easy Oil'" http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527487044360045762994214551333... (Try Googling the title, if this link is behind a pay wall.)

The government recently made a stab at fixing the problem with an announced oil release from the SPR, showing they are now catching on to the underlying problem. Bernanke otherwise attempts to use his "tools" to fix the symptoms of the problem, but he is powerless to fix the underlying cause. This is why his policies are doomed to failure.

James Hamilton and I were recently involved in a Focus Roundtable on the Real Causes and Wider Economic Effects of High Gas Prices http://www.focus.com/roundtables/real-causes-and-wider-macroeconomic-effects-...

no

Interesting so many persons nail the Roosevelt "miracle" on the head: World War 2 created job, through deficit spending and debt, not modern peacetime Keynesian-type tax cuts for the rich and bailouts for Wall Street

The problem for the war solution is the nature, type and size of modern "allowable wars" like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya

Employment-creating wars are big, go on a long time and employ a lot of persons

Current Indiana Jones-type wars are bot in the same ballpark, thats all, and taking on real serious New Enemies (China for example) would go nuclear pretty fast, so we likely dont have a war solution anymore

Absolutely not. Ben Bernake being in charge of the Fed is the absolutely literal Fox guarding the chicken coup. This man, along with his predecessors have nearly uniformly wrecked our nation with their insane monetary policies. The entire Great Recession was directly caused by the market distortion the Federal Reserve has intertwined through our economy since the S&L crisis.

I Don't know guys how to tell you this, it seems to me that every body is enjoying the party not missing any spark out of it.

For sure this is not a party festival, so your way of thinking logically needs to be different.

Still I am trying to catch the right approach to tell you this. by simple logic let's start this argument.

If you want to see the whole picture and the trend were the american economy is heading, look around you and you will see it, still it is little bit cloudy or clumsy or be unable to be understood.

what Ben is doing with his FED are simply, squeezing American Economy to there net assets. you all will be owned by fed by law. they can lend the Government and hold all it's assets till it break down to bankruptcy and get owned by FED.

If you still have any doubt, go read the FED regulation Goals and objectives, they own you since they own the currency means the US $. and the own the government since they lend it more it can pay back.

needs more, OK the FED is different from other central bank. it is a private cooperation. it's business is only to lend the government. what so ever FED interest is different from government, as an example of a loon seeker to banker. I think this point is clear now. I don't' want to explain more. I let this to your common sense.

So our Ben and FED are trying there best to win. finish.

No. I do not trust Ben Bernanke - but then I'm Canadian so perhaps I shouldn't have a viewpoint. However...for the purpose of your survey...at least you have a response.

This is the video I wanted to link to earlier:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INmqvibv4UU&feature=share

How about the storyline that Ben Barnanke is responsible for higher gasoline prices and since *everybody* knows high gas prices cause recession, Bernanke is causing recession by depreciating the world vaue of the US dollar which is a pretty straight cause of rising prices for most anything traded in dollars, especially gold and oil.

Maybe Bernanke didnt really mean to hike gas prices, but by cutting the value of the dollar that is what he does.
But we can add another layer to us: by giving windfall gains to oil exporter countries, this allows US Fed players like the Fed Reserve Bank of NY to take in deposits from some of the oil exporter countries, which maybe helps Bernanke finance the deficit, a little or (see URLbelow) a lot. The NY Reserve Bank is real proud of what it is doing

http://www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci12-9/ci12-9.html

So maybe its a conspiracy by Bernanke and his pals in the Fed reserve system - to drive up oil prices then take it chunks of petrodollars, to slow the rate of decline in the value of the dollar ?

Roy, "Yes I support Obama because he is trying to get the country back on track while pushing uphill against an obstructionist Congress", can't be correct since Obama wants to fundamentally change the country. How can Obama "get the country back on track" while fundamentally changing the country? He can't do both.

Obama had control of the House and Senate for two years and for one year he had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate yet he could not get everything he wanted, perhaps members of his own party are the obstructionists.

John,

1) Obama said he was going fundamentally change America. If you have a problem with what he said, I suggest you take it up with him.

2) You are correct, Obama does not have the support of the American people, therefore, his agenda should be denied.

What? Public policy is about politics, how interesting.

"That is truly sad when people of differing points of view can't come together to discuss objectives and solutions without it turning into a game of brinkmanship. "

Obama said he was going to DC to be inclusive and be the president of all the people yet he told the opposition to sit at the back of the bus and be quiet. He wasn't about inclusion until he lost the House and is about to lose the Senate. Had he followed through with his campaign promise to be inclusive his job approval rating might be higher than 41%.

No...LOW TAXES AND LOW INTEREST RATES DON'T MEAN SQUAT IF MY HOUSE IS WORTH 40% LESS THAN 3 YRS AGO. ITS A 20 YEAR FIX FOOLS.
low interest rates & low taxes, as some suggest, won't change an aging population that's over leveraged with credit card debt and over valued homes & increasing health care costs (the baby boomers). The boomer population is now saving for retirement...the '90's and early '00's were their younger years to flash the cash & live large...it's over!!! Economy will stagnate since Boomers will use less leverage & save. Remember the Roaring '20's it ended in the 30's...it took 20 years for an economic boom to return (the '50's housing boom)...that's when the baby boomers were being born.
Last point if I go from 30% tax to 25% tax, how the HELL is that going increase the value of my house that's worth 40% less today then 3 years ago?...that extra $2,500 in tax savings is going to go to the interest on my credit cards...THERE IS NO QUICK FIX, IT'S A 20 YEAR FIX!!!

Maybe. Economies recover suburb by suburb, town by town and then city by city and state by state. Then voila, the country is in recovery.

What goverments can do is give the person in the street confidence by ensuring they have money to spend. Spending in all quarters drives local recoveries which makes jobs and creates more money in the pockets of people who gain confidence and spend. A self fulfilling cycle.

Governments can free up money by taking taxes and allocating them where they can put money into the pockets of the public at large, not a few "fat cats".

Yes I support Obama because he is trying to get the country back on track while pushing uphill against an obstructionist Congress. In the mean time, China may be growing; but that’s because they pay most of their workers a crap wage and under working conditions we would never tolerate. Remember in the 60s through the 80s when corporations paid their fair share of taxes that the economy prospered. Unfortunately for the much of the middle class, they don’t have to be concerned about capital gains, but those that do need to pay their fare share. With such a low capital gains rate, they pay less tax than some middle class families. What’s needed is our Congress to get some backbone and revise the laws that prevent corporations from exporting their wealth (along with jobs) to other immoral countries, pay no taxes, and then send slave labor products back in. Again, Obama is trying to get these things accomplished if only he could get the support he needs.

I am confident in his leadership.

I am equally confident that he will be roadblocked by others with a political agenda.

It's not directly his job to get the economy going, but to help recreate a sense of stability and confidence in the economic system. In that regard, I think he has done a great job with the tools he has available. I believe that the measures taken helped to avert a more cataclysmic event that may have occurred due to the policies of the two previous administrations. Once America has recovered from it's credit abuse hangover and complete confidence in the financial system has been restored, the economy will most likely move on it's own.

I agree with Robert Wadsworth's comment above...also, for those with such short memories, the U.S. economy improved significantly after Bill Clinton's tax hikes!

It's strange that nobody commenting here mentions Germany's economy...booming manufacturing base in spite of strong labor unions, a high-quality science, math and engineering education system, high-quality national healthcare, A MUCH MORE AGGRESSIVE RECIPROCAL AND "FAIR" TRADE POLICY WITH CHINA, NOT THE UNILATERAL FREE TRADE POLICY THE US HAS...GERMANY'S ECONOMIC HEALTH DEMONSTRATES THE SUCCESSFUL, ONGOING PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY...THEY ALSO HAVE A VERY CAPABLE CHANCELLOR IN ANGELA MERKEL (WHOSE BACKGROUND BTW IS IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES, NOT FINANCE!)...

SO, WHAT IS GERMANY DOING RIGHT? IT MUST BE SOMETHING IMPORTANT ENOUGH FOR HER TO HAVE BEEN INVITED TO THE WHITE HOUSE TWO WEEKS AGO FOR PRIVATE TALKS ABOUT ECONOMICS AND TRADE!

Cutting taxes has never worked, and it won't work now. We need to raise taxes on the rich and corporations, close military bases, end unfunded wars, and start infrastructure programs. If we're going to give anybody a break on taxes, it should be the working and middle class people. They will spend that money in the economy, not invest it in businesses in other countries. The argument that giving the corporations and the rich more so they can create jobs as the way to grow the economy is myth. The economy will only grow when working and middle class people have money to buy things. Where is the evidence that giving breaks to the rich builds jobs? For thirty years the buying power for working and middle class families has bought less and less, while the number of hours we work, and the number of jobs we have to hold keeps going up. Meanwhile more and more of the GDP is absorbed by the rich who do not reinvest it in this country. You want to grow the economy? Take from the rich and Corporations and give to the middle and working class. No business can even survive let allow thrive if there are no customers. Reverse the last thirty years of wealth redistribution in this country and we'll see plenty of growth.

Bernaanke isn't the solution to our economic problems. The problems are a direct result of misguided political wrangling. Cutting taxes and reducing spending are not the answers. The economy can't get moving again until people have jobs and income. The government should be pushing programs to develop infrastructure -- build and remodel schools, improve roads and bridges, develop mass transit systems and alternative energy resources. That'll put people to work and give them money to spend, and the country will end up with valuable assets. Taxes? They are lower than since the 50's and revenue is also the lowest in 5 decades. This in the face of a larger population and a more complicated set of needs. This country had it's greatest growth in the 35 years after WWII when the highest tax rate was 70%. We cannot solve the deficit problem by cutting expenses alone -- we have to increase taxes on those who have benefited most from the opportunities this great country gave them and their fathers. Take a lesson from the last great depression -- started in 1929, unemployment in 1938 was still over 20%. It has often been said that Roosevelt didn't fix the depression, WWII did, and that's right. The war put people to work making bombs, planes and ships -- none of which had any asset value when the war was over. But people had jobs and money in their pockets and it fired the economy for the next 35 years until the "trickle down" folks got a hold of the government planning. Common sense tells us that we can't fix the economy without jobs and tax cuts have never resulted in a booming economy.

As others have said he is doing a good to great job. But he is only one piece in the puzzle and we know what the picture looks like but too many other players have 1. There own picture. 2. Are not willing to share all of the pieces. 3. A lot of the pieces are missing.

No. You can only, as is said, "squeeze so much blood out of turnip." If congress had let the twigs tax cuts expire and the top 2% and corporations start paying their fair share of taxes, we would be on our way out of this mess. I'm for responsible spending, but we need the $ to spend. The middle class by itself can't do it alone. Common sense tells us that spending more not less is the way out of a recession. It has worked for Roosevelt and other administrations in the past that have had to deal with an economy in such a state as ours is now.