Monday, January 9, 2012

Bernanke Hasn't Failed, If You Measure Success By His Real Mission

Charles Hugh Smith continues to heap scorn upon Bernanke's alleged stupidity and failure, once again ascribing pure motives to a proven con man:

Ben Bernanke's zero-interest rate policy (ZIRP) and command-economy efforts to maintain mispricing of risk, debt and assets are destroying capital and capitalism. No wonder his policies have failed so miserably.
But Bernanke doesn't serve the whole economy, or even the real economy.  He serves the true owners of the fiction of capitalism (you see, it isn't reality).  Continuing:

Recall that the root of "capitalism" is capital. Capitalism requires two fundamentals--capital to invest and open markets for goods and services that openly price risk, assets, hedges and goods.
Not true.  The root of "capitalism" as actually practiced is credit lent out at compounding interest.  CHS goes on to prove my point:

Compare that with Bernanke's policies, all of which severely punish savers (i.e. the accumulation of capital) and reward leverage and debt. By lowering interest rates to zero, Bernanke has imposed the opposite of the World War II experience of forced savings--he has made cash into trash and pushed everyone into risk assets.
And you think Bernanke does not understand this?  And you think that he would be allowed (nay, commanded) to do this by the powers that be if he wasn't actually propping up the "capitalism" of reality?

Capitalism has never existed at least since the Enlightenment.  It has always been Financialism.

Rationalists like CHS, Mish and Karl always like to treat people they disagree with as stupid when, under most circumstances, those people are much smarter than their critics.  They have to be in order to convince smart rationalists that they are stupid instead of evil.