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Ear to the Ground

Bernanke Bears Bad News for the Jobless

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Posted on Jul 21, 2010
Bernanke
Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Federal Reserve

Those out-of-work Americans hoping to hear something encouraging from the general direction of Capitol Hill wouldn’t like what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had to say to Congress on Wednesday. According to Bernanke, their situation may not improve much for at least two years.  —KA

The New York Times:

The unemployment rate in the United States is likely to remain well above 7 percent through the end of 2012 and the duration of President Obama’s current term, according to the Federal Reserve.

Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, told Congress on Wednesday that it would take “a significant amount of time” to restore the 8.5 million jobs lost in the United States in 2008 and 2009, and warned that “the economic outlook remains unusually uncertain.” He also warned that financial conditions, particularly the European sovereign debt crisis, had “become less supportive of economic growth in recent months.”

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New and Improved Comments

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By Matt, July 22, 2010 at 7:44 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Gerald Celente had it right about a new political party “progressive libertarian” emerging from this greatest depression.Not only is he right
,but it’s a great idea for bridging the gap that devides the patriotic,antiwar,socially liberals, and so on….

Report this

By Hal (GT), July 22, 2010 at 1:36 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

He wasn’t exactly providing news we didn’t know. If
fact I’d say he’s late to the game and been rather
blind to the situation.

Report this

By REDHORSE, July 22, 2010 at 12:16 pm Link to this comment

This smirking monkeys face should appear in Websters as the illustration for the word “hubris”. Does the recent “G-SUMMIT” in Canada have something to do with this?  If “AUSTERITY” is indeed the new watchword, then lets get AUSTERE. I call for heavy taxation of the rich, oil, gas, coal, and the MSM who use our National Airways until the National Debt is paid and the budget is balanced.

      Someone has put a rat in the financial mixing bowl, and I confess, my grasp of real national finance is weak. Why do they intend to continue a war that is breaking us financially and socially, as our debt to China escalates and our economy nears collapse. Isn’t this a prescription for World War? The Federal Reserve and Obama have no allegiance to the American People and care not a fig for the American future. They’re swine. Their money is their money and you’re money is their money. Who the #@&k do these people think they’re #@$&ing; with?

    TRUTHDIG needs a serious economic writer and a series on national finance. How about those vivacious, talented and beautiful ladies, Kline and Prinz (sp)? They have teeth and use’em.

      See ya!!

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By samosamo, July 22, 2010 at 8:59 am Link to this comment

****************


I don’t know how much better it would be or worse, but if the
congress had balls and repealed the treasonous federal reserve
act of 1913, there would be a better chance of getting a grip on
really strengthening the economy instead of some smirking
member of that fed res telling us jobs just ain’t gonna happen
for another decade, enjoying his part in telling this to all of us as
if he is the controller of the country. Oh gosh, he is, or well at
least his rothchild, warburg, rockerfeller and other elite puppet
masters who tell him what to do and say. To think about it, I just
don’t recall every hearing of a president telling the chairman of
the fed res what to do, it has all been the other way around.

If old bennie keeps up this ‘happy news’ deliverance, he would
be wise to not leave his body guards behind, as there appears to
be some people that would like to have him over for ‘cocktail
hour’.

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By Mark, July 22, 2010 at 4:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Larry Summers said much of the same thing - and had even worse news for long term unemployed males - back in May of this year.

Quote: “A good guess … is that when the economy recovers FIVE YEARS FROM NOW, ONE IN
SIX MEN WHO ARE 25 TO 54 WILL NOT BE WORKING,”
Emphasis added.

See: “Meet the Unemployable Man”, by David Wessel, WSJ, May 6, 2010.

Despite the fact that the chief economic advisor to the POTUS said that “recovery” wouldn’t happen til 2015 (!?), and despite the fact that Summers opined that MILLIONS of working age men will STILL be unemployed, the same provoked nary a ripple in the MSM.
Austerity (for the masses, that is)is now the official, if unspoken, policy of the U.S. government.

Fasten your seatbelts, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride down.

P.S. Notice how blame is being shifted from Wall Street to those darn foreigners and their pesky “sovereign debt crisis”?

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Fat Freddy's avatar

By Fat Freddy, July 22, 2010 at 3:42 am Link to this comment

Better fire up that Helicopter, Ben, you’re out of ammo. Be sure to fly over my house when you start dropping money. When inflation hits, interest rates rise, we default on our debt, the dollar crashes, and we go to war with China, I hope everybody remembers that it was your bullshit Keynesian economic theory that was to blame, douchebag. But liberals will continue to blame deregulation, and conservatives will continue to blame Fannie and Freddie, and they will BOTH be wrong.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

- Frédéric Bastiat

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By omisaide7, July 22, 2010 at 2:06 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

SteveL I love that idea.

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By Lisa, July 22, 2010 at 12:08 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

Bernanke is a big failure. People in whitehouse keep thinking that economy is collapsing because “small businesses” can’t go deeper into debt. But actually if a business has positive cashflow it doesn’t have a credit problem. make sense?

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By faith, July 21, 2010 at 9:27 pm Link to this comment

Geithner, Summers, Bernanke should be fired.  Obama should not be reelected.

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By SteveL, July 21, 2010 at 5:41 pm Link to this comment

Want to see a instant change in attitude?  Sub this guy’s job out to an accountant in India tomorrow.  An accountant in India would not do any worse and just might do a lot better.

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