Is the Federal Reserve Chairman lacking in intellect or integrity?
I’m starting to get dizzy. One day we’re heading into a tailspin, next we’ve bounced off the bottom and are headed back to prosperity. One day, the banks are in need of trillions, lest we soon experience the end of the world as we know it. The next day the banks have beaten all earnings expectations and normal lending is right around the corner. In March, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told 60 Minutes that he had detected “green shoots” of economic recovery. Maybe he was thinking that if you spread enough manure around, something would be destined to grow? (Sorry, just thinking out loud over here.) In March, we lost 663,000 jobs, and 290,000 people received foreclosure notices. Ben, however, was seeing shoots of green. Then in April we only lost 593,000 jobs, but then foreclosures jumped to 342,000. Now it’s the end of May, and Gentle Ben’s looking a little green around the gills himself. Back in January the central bank forecasted unemployment reaching 8.5% – 8.8% by year-end. But then in
