The mirage of recovery

[marmar]

from the Asia Times:



The mirage of recovery
By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene


Over recent days, observing a sudden increase in car sales and record profits of "bankrupt" banks, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has announced that recovery of the US economy was under way. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner echoed the same message and even "globalized" his prediction of a recovery for the world economy. President Barack Obama saw "glimmers of hope". While these three top US policymakers were rushing to announce recovery, economist Paul Krugman exuded skepticism, saying "do not count your recoveries before they are hatched".

US policymakers' optimism seems to be founded on their grandiose reflationary programs. Obama has launched an unprecedented stimulus package at US$787 billion, followed by the largest US fiscal deficit ever, at $1.85 trillion, or 13% of gross domestic product (GDP). Underlying the stimulus package and the fiscal deficit was a Harvard income multiplier of 1.5, implying an increase in the US real GDP by about $4 trillion, or a record 30% per year. The basic economics advocated by the Obama team were simple: trillions of dollars in stimulus package and government expenditures would boost real aggregate demand for consumption and investment and automatically lead to economic recovery and full employment. Their mechanical multiplier model provided a strong reason for Obama to announce a premature economic recovery.

Bernanke's optimism is the result of the aggressive monetary policy that he forced under the George W Bush administration and has continued to expound under Obama, irrespective of the devastation it has caused to the banking sector and subsequent fiscal bailouts. Bernanke has gained the reputation of the doctor of the "Great Depression" and proponent of monetary anarchy. For him and his school of thought, inflation seems to be of little concern. His aggressive monetary policy has sent the US economy, and with it the world economy, into financial collapse and recession.

Yet, doctor Bernanke kept strong faith in his aggressive anti-Great Depression medicine. Besides forcing interest rates to zero, never seen in the monetary history of the US, he decided to unleash money supply by expanding the credit of the Federal Reserve from $700 billion prior to August 2007 to $2.3 trillion by end April 2009. Doctor Bernanke's reasoning was simple: zero interest rates combined with unlimited credit to the sub-prime markets ought to hike up aggregate demand in such a powerful way that it blasts away recession and secures fast growth and full employment. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KE05Dj05.html

[truedelphi]

1. Today was Bernanke's "Mission Accomplished" moment

As it takes about eighteen months for the inflation we can expect to cruelly topple any of the good that is being done by Obama's twelve trillion buck give away to the top one percent, I don't hold much faith in Bernanke.

The Money Party needs its moment, just as the Military supporters needed Geroge W out on that carrier. I don't know why it has to sting the way it does, - on the one hand we have people who are honorable being arrested as they protest Bacuus' Corporate Insurance GiveAway. On the other hand, we have Bernanke saying how comfy everything is right now.

They can suck my big dirty toe.

[ixion]

2. People seem intent on denying reality

and instead clinging to some type of Hollywood narrative a.k.a. the Myth of the Bottom.

- Until the banks write down the value of their assets, we do not know if we're at the bottom.

- The fact that they're entirely unwilling to do this means that they know that they are insolvent.

- They are insolvent, and we have nearly doubled our national debt in an alleged "bailout".

- The debt increase has caused great concern amongst the group of nations who loan us money.

- If we default, or our bond rating is dropped from AAA, the value of the dollar will fall.

That, as I see it, is the sound of the second shoe dropping, and what no one in the MSM is discussing.