Yellen Unlikely to Stop Fed’s Money-Printing Addiction

Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Fed Vice Chairman Janet L. Yellen holding the bag for Ben Bernanke's Keynesian-inspired insanity

Now that former Clinton Treasury Secretary Treasury and former Harvard University president Larry Summers has withdrawn his name from consideration as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, Fed Vice Chairman Janet L. Yellen has seeminglybecome the leading candidate for the job. She would replace Ben Bernanke whose term expires in January. If appointed, Yellen would be the first woman to chair the Fed.

Yellen’s apparent good fortune was engendered by Summers’ withdrawal, triggered in large part by the staunch opposition to his nomination by at least five Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Many of them believed Summers’ relationship with Wall Street was too cozy, and that he bore considerable responsibility for the economic meltdown of 2008. Warren made it clear that she was happy with the sudden turn of events. “Janet Yellen, I hope, will make a terrific Federal Reserve chair,” Warren said on MSNBC. “The president will make his decision, but I hope that happens.”

The stock market was equally elated. The announcement of Summers’ withdrawal led to a Dow rally of 118 points, as well as a lowering of interest rates, due to the market’s perception that Summers was less committed to the Fed’s current monetary stimulus program, known as Quantitative Easing (QE), than Yellen might be. That elation wasunderscored by a monthly CNBC poll of “economists, traders and strategists” who weigh in on Fed issues. In July, when the question of who Obama would replace Bernanke with was raised, 70 percent of respondents said Yellen, compared to only 25 percent who said Summers. When they were asked who they wanted to replace Bernanke, the figures were even more lopsided, with 50 percent giving Yellen the nod, compared to a paltry 2.5 percent who favored Summers.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Biden On $16 Trillion Deficit: All Bush’s Fault…

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  ABC OTUS News - Biden Blames Bush Administration for Deficit (ABC News)

FORT MYERS, Fla. - Vice President Joe Biden placed the blame for the ballooning deficit on the Bush administration today, arguing that the previous administration saddled the country with the burden of trillions of dollars in debt.

"Let's get serious here! How did we get this debt? Ladies and gentlemen, they put two wars on a credit card. Not paying a penny, not paying a penny, even though I introduced legislation to pay for that war. They voted against it," Biden said at the Wa-Ke Hatchee Park Recreation Center. "Two, they voted for a new entitlement program without paying one penny for it, and that was clear. Number 3, they added another trillion dollars in the tax cut for the very wealthy, so what's the result? These are the facts, folks, these are the facts.

"The result was by the time the reins got turned back over to Barack [Obama] and me, they had doubled the national debt in eight years, doubled the national debt in eight years," Biden added.

Biden recounted that within the first week of being in office, Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to the president, warned newly inaugurated President Obama of the deficit the country faced.

"We were sitting in the oval office, and Larry Summers, the chief economic adviser, and the economic team came in and said 'Mr. President, looking at this year's budget you are going to have a trilliondollar deficit.' He said, 'I haven't done anything yet,'" Biden said. "I'm serious. They said, 'No, Mr. President, the budget they passed, the budget they passed in October of last year guarantees no matter what you do you're going to have a trillion dollar debt this year in the budget.' A trillion dollar deficit to be precise."

Earlier in the week, the Washington Post fact checked President Obama's claim that the Bush administration's policies accounted for 90 percent of the country's current deficit and rated the assertion as false, since the president also pushed spending increases and tax cuts that added to the deficit.

Biden also claimed the Obama administration has proposed a plan that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years and has already decreased the deficit by $1 trillion

Via: Yahoo

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