Stop the Madness 2

As often as possible I pick up the Wall Street Journal because it is by far one of the most in-depth newspapers in existence (not to be confused with the USA Today). During a recent perusal, I happened to come across a piece about Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke getting taken behind the woodshed by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (Friday, June 26, 2009 "Bernanke Blasted in House"). By the way, for all those keeping score at home, this committee is going to be busy for A LONG TIME reviewing several of our congressmen).

Apparently, the HCOGR didn't like Mr. Bernanke's methods of "...pushing Bank of America to complete its acquisition of Merrill Lynch..." They didn't like his tactics, but who was giving him his marching orders? The gov'. Who was leaning on him to get this deal done? The gov'. From the article in the WSJ:

It was the harshest public grilling for a central bank chief since the late 1990s, the result of unease over the Fed's role in fighting the financial panic and a backlash against government bailouts, which the Fed has helped to lead.

So as to get a good picture of what happened, let's take a closer look at this sentence. "...the harshest public grilling..." for:
1. "...unease over the Fed's role..." Really? I can't imagine that. Someone is disturbed by the gov's role in pouring money into a nebulous, global credit and financial system? Why on earth would someone be uneasy about that? Could it be that the gov' was never designed to do this?
2. "...fighting the financial panic..." And just why is the gov' trying to fight this? We have supply and demand on our side. The gov' is once again NOT THE ANSWER!
3. ...backlash against government bailouts..." Stop the presses! I for one will throw the first stone at the yahoo who is upset at this. Government bailouts are a) as American as apple pie and baseball, b) have been around for hundreds of years, and c) are proven successful means for saving the economy (cross reference any number of countries who have tried socialism and/or communism).

STOP THE MADNESS! You can't grill Mr. Bernanke for being successful at the task for which you sent him to complete. You can't use him as a punching bag when YOU sent him to do this.

"...The biggest point of contention was over whether Mr. Bernanke threatened to oust Bank of America CEO..." You told the man to go do something with I'm sure all the pressure of the world's economy in the balance, and you're now worried over whether he threatened to fire the CEO. Are you kidding me? The CEO might have been convicted that what he was being pressured to do wasn't right. Did you ever think of that?

"...Bank of America approached top U.S. officials...about abandoning its deal to buy Merrill Lynch..." Thank heavens. Someone comes to his senses and tries to reason with the gov'. Not so fast Batman.

"...In the end, the government arranged a $20 billion rescue package for the bank to cover growing losses at the investment bank..." And no matter what a person tries to do to steer the ship in the right direction, the task is just too great...the gov' won't be denied.

Ben, won't you come up to the front of the class and share with us what you did this past summer...