They use the fancy term “quantitative easing,” instead of saying in plain English that they are essentially just printing more money.
Prophets and Losses
By Thomas Sowell On February 7, 2013
Now that the federal government is playing an ever larger role in the economy, a look at Washington’s track record seems to be long overdue.
The recent release of the Federal Reserve Board’s transcripts of its deliberations back in 2007 shows that their economic prophecies were way off. How much faith should we put in their prophecies today — or the policies based on those prophecies?
Even after the housing market began its collapse in 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2007, “The impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained.”
It turned out that financial disasters in the housing market were not “contained,” but spread out to affect the whole American economy and economies overseas. Then Chairman Bernanke said: “It is an interesting question why what looks like $100 billion or so of credit losses in the subprime market has been reflected in multiple trillions of dollars of losses in paper wealth.”
What is an even more interesting question is why we should put such faith and suchpower in the hands of a man and an institution that have been so wrong before.
This is not just a question of a bad guess by Ben Bernanke. The previous chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Alan Greenspan, likewise misjudged the consequences of the housing boom and bust. Nor was the Federal Reserve’s staff any more accurate in its prophecies. According to the New York Times, “The Fed’s own staff still forecast that the economy would avoid a recession.”
Today, the economy has not yet fully recovered from the recession that the Federal Reserve System’s staff and chairmen thought we would avoid.
We all make mistakes. But we don’t all have the enormous and growing power of the Federal Reserve System...
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The recent release of the Federal Reserve Board’s transcripts of its deliberations back in 2007 shows that their economic prophecies were way off. How much faith should we put in their prophecies today — or the policies based on those prophecies?
Even after the housing market began its collapse in 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2007, “The impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained.”
It turned out that financial disasters in the housing market were not “contained,” but spread out to affect the whole American economy and economies overseas. Then Chairman Bernanke said: “It is an interesting question why what looks like $100 billion or so of credit losses in the subprime market has been reflected in multiple trillions of dollars of losses in paper wealth.”
What is an even more interesting question is why we should put such faith and suchpower in the hands of a man and an institution that have been so wrong before.
This is not just a question of a bad guess by Ben Bernanke. The previous chairman of the Federal Reserve System, Alan Greenspan, likewise misjudged the consequences of the housing boom and bust. Nor was the Federal Reserve’s staff any more accurate in its prophecies. According to the New York Times, “The Fed’s own staff still forecast that the economy would avoid a recession.”
Today, the economy has not yet fully recovered from the recession that the Federal Reserve System’s staff and chairmen thought we would avoid.
We all make mistakes. But we don’t all have the enormous and growing power of the Federal Reserve System...
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