Saturday, February 26, 2011

INFLATION: Who to Blame?

Our government, Ben Bernanke and his back up group, the Fed, openly declare that there is no inflation to speak of. They claim it is in their guidelines of .02%. Of course, they don't include food and energy in their stats. Must be nice never to be cold, hungry, or drive a car?
Old Ben will appear twice this week before our elected leaders. He will defend his QE2, questions about inflation in the face of a rapid rise in oil prices due to the Middle East contagion and future plans to keep our economy growing and lower unemployment. Will anyone ask him how the government declared that our GDP grew at 3.5% in the fourth quarter, pushing the stock market higher, when it just got revised DOWN to 2.4%?
Old Ben has been under attack over his printing policy to buy Treasuries, help the banking industry and flooding the market with new money. It is not just in this blog. The Wall Street Journal gave a catcall too by declaring his policy to be inflationary as the "Bernanke Premium." China, as well as all the emerging market countries scream over his printing policy. In fact, it is hard to find anyone in his corner except President Obama which needs a cheaper dollar to create more exports in hope of finding new jobs to get reelected. Does anybody do anything because it is right anymore? Yes, Ben, everyone is wrong and you are right. Ha!
There were 24 food riots around the world in 2009 and similar numbers in 2010. Food exporting countries halted their exporting to avoid having their own nation go hungry. They generally subsidize food within their respective nations, but with sovereign debt issues, this too is under pressure. Their cry is this. With the excess of dollars in the marketplace, these countries have to devalue their currency in order to maintain their market niche. This causes inflation to their individual nations. It is a race to the bottom value in world currencies. The present Middle East unrest started over inflation. Bernanke says it is not his policy that causes this inflation, but the rise in commodities which these nations export. Hey, they're both right except Bernanke is taxing all Americans because we are paying more for food and energy. Oh, yeah, Ben does not count that as inflationary. END THE FED! START A NEW POLITICAL PARTY! One that represents the truth and has integrity to do the right thing for America based on the Founders ideas of Madison and Jefferson. We need the NEO-FEDERALIST! NOW!