Ben Bernanke vs. The Black Swan – Carternomics Revisited

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Ben Bernanke Is Creating A Disaster Once Again With Obama’s Blessing

The “Black Swan” is a theory popularized by Nicholas Taleb that says that unpredictable financial stress periodically hits the financial markets and wipes out Wall Street institutions that use models that claim that such events are so rare that they do not need to worry about them.

In the summer of 2008 Taleb wrote an article saying that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were on the verge of total collapse and so was the entire banking system.

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It was at this moment in time that a reporter asked Ben Bernanke about Taleb and the “Black swan.” Bernanke’s reaction got caught on camera as you can see in the above video clip.

He laughs and says he doesn’t read Taleb.

Bernanke’s own policies created the financial bubbles that led to the 2008 crash. And he laughed.

http://www.istockanalyst.com/f…

It should be obvious to anyone who is sentient that this diatribe is filled with rightwing kookery such as these later gems:

Paul Krugman had claimed that Obama and Bernanke have been heroes of the economy and the crisis is over.

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[People] are being told by people like Paul Krugman that government debt doesn’t matter

Equating Paul Krugman with Reagan and Laffer is almost as absurd as blaming Ben Bernanke for the planetary economic disaster created by the bankers.

The heroes of the article are the rightwing loons that don’t give a hang about disaster that has befallen the working class, the aged, the young and very young and the disabled while the very wealthy have profited enormously – even more than Obama and his minions, who would make those at the bottom pay for the sins of the robber barons.

Given all that, there is a very valuable point here IMO.

The distortions in the economy being wildly expanded by reliance on monetary policy to repair damage exacerbated by austerity is reminiscent of Carter’s economic foppery that gave us the Misery Index while the usual indicators of economic health looked dandy.

Best,  Terry