Guest Post By MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan
You want to do something about jobs? Well, considering a different Fed Chairman might be a good place to start.
Nothing would more clearly display the inability of our leaders to deal with the disastrous state of our economy than easily reconfirming Ben Bernanke for another round at the Fed on the same day that they hold a "job summit" in a harebrained attempt to try to figure out how to create jobs in this country.
So far in his tenure, Chairman Bernanke has already told us that housing prices won't go down, the subprime market will be "contained", unemployment won't get to 10% and that instead of regulation, those responsible Wall Streeters who used credit derivative swaps could just be trusted to use them "properly". Of course, he thinks this performance should be rewarded with more power and utter secrecy.
If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, does that make Bernanke crazy for still basing our nation's economic policies on his terrible predictions? Does it make Congress crazy for reconfirming him? Or does it make us crazy for voting these people into office??
Defenders like to point out what a fantastic job Chairman Bernanke has done "rescuing" our economy from supposed CERTAIN DOOM, utilizing his formidable expertise on the Great Depression as his guidance (or cover) for providing an infinite supply of money to our most culpable banks with no strings attached. Dropping the future wealth of America from the sky is a pretty easy way to put out almost any economic fire, but in this case our superstar fireman also happens to be one of the primary arsonists.
So what does Bernanke's failure to be a proper steward of our nation's banks have to with jobs?
Unlike any other business, banks and insurance companies are the only companies that do business with the wealth of others. Banks are also the only business granted a list of special privileges and responsibilities. This was done to encourage banks to take the savings of others and lend it out to American businesses and individuals, with the goal of helping grow new ideas and businesses that serve the current and future needs of society and, in the process, create jobs that help fulfill those needs.
But our banks haven't been serving the interests of the broader economy for quite some time.
Instead of being incentivized by the government to lend money to all the innovators, investors and workers in this country, our banks are either hoarding cash, playing the spread between low interest government loans and higher yields or just flat-out gambling through the giant and ongoing insurance fraud that is the derivatives market.
The Federal Reserve and other government programs are literally pouring a potential $23.7 trillion of taxpayer money into bucket with a giant hole in the bottom and wondering why there are no jobs.
Would you work if you could steal money without consequences? Would you do the hard work of lending money to the small businesses of America if you could just make more gambling it in swap markets of New York and never have to worry about the losses?
This economic model is not geared towards jobs. This is not capitalism. This is not American. This is a crime.
So when the very same government proclaims today at a so-called "jobs summit" that, by golly, they really want to try and come up with some ideas to help you get a job, tell them a good place to start would be to deal with the recent job performance of one of our economy's chief arsonists.
Originally appeared at the Huffington Post
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